closing another chapter in the story that is my life. i’m not exactly sure how the chapter is going to end but it is ending. good times and bad. friends i have made. i wonder if we would still be keeping in contact? oh well. looking forward to a brave new chapter. i have no idea how this new chapter is going start. i don’t even have an idea of where to begin…
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i want to achieve Fast Track by end April. however, i have a small problem. i have no motivation. everyday, i have just been procrastinating and watching time past me by.
that’s not how i envisioned myself this year. i had so many goals to achieve. Fast Track, MYC, A&H, QC and even QCE. however, with each passing day, all i am doing is making excuses for myself. i need to snap out of this. i have been opening cases but to be brutally honest with myself, it’s not the number of cases opened that counts. it’s the number of cases closed!
it’s already the 27th of February. 1 more day before it’s March. i will run the race. i have to.
my appointment got canceled. yet again. thanks buddy. you just made my day.
so anyway, i decided to drink a bit more of the green stuff. and while drinking, something just hit me. people can’t shut the fuck up. try telling a friend something private and WHAM! it will come back to bite you in the ass. seriously. i have been the recipient of it before. who hasn’t?
what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. and it makes you smarter. or for my case, it just makes me goddamn paranoid. what happened in my case was somehow, i stupidly told someone i liked her. apparently she didn’t feel the same way and she thought it’d be funny to tell her friends, etc1.
anyway, long story short, everyone soon found out. but the best part was, i didn’t know everyone knew. and everything i did was up for scrutiny. during a valentine’s day, i remember buying her a bear. a Forever Friend bear. one that cost me about $250. heh. i remember the price because that was the last time i ever got one of those. i mean, seriously. i thought it was a romantic gesture. experience taught me it was a fucking dumb move.
i don’t remember what happened exactly but it seemed that she smsed a friend of hers saying that the bear was a stupid gesture. luckily the friend showed me the sms. after showing it to a bunch of other people of course. and there are a few other incidents. not going to put them up here. but suffice it to say, i’m wary of getting interested/attracted/liking/whateverthefuckyoucallit in someone now. it’s like, considering what’s been happening so far, it’s probably another invitation to be ridiculed.
heh. see? whoever says being drunk isn’t good probably hasn’t been drunk on absinthe. it opens up the fucking universe dude!
- this happened many years back. but it appears i haven’t learnt my lesson. obviously.[↩]
one of my favourite quotes comes from xkcd, a webcomic i frequent.
and it’s true. it’s not enough to want something. you actually have to get off your butt to do something about it. i’ve always been a passive guy. but lately, there’s just something which clicked inside my brain telling me that it’s time for me to do something.
i have a goal this year. i want to hit Fast Track. on top of that, i want to hit Macau and also MYC Beijing as well as this year’s A&H challenge. last year, i wanted to hit A&H as well as my PPS. couldn’t hit it due to poor planning. all i thought of was “i want to hit” but i didn’t think of the “how” and the “by when”.
this year, it’s different. having learnt from a number of mentors, i am determined to make my mark this year. where there is a will, there will always be a way. as long as you desperately want something and actually are doing something to achieve it, breakthroughs will happen.
there will be a breakthrough.
however, before the breakthrough can be achieved, there need to be a couple of important ingredients: strategy, planning, desperation, determination. with a proper planning and a proper strategy, a person who is desperate and determined enough will achieve whatever he has set his eyes on.
i’ve been missing in action for the past 20 days. loads of stuffs to do and loads of stuffs to think about. went to Kuala Lumpur for my organization’s annual general meeting. 3 days and 2 nights at the palace of the golden horses. supposedly a 5 star hotel. it was not a bad trip. first overseas trip with the organization and even though it’s not one of the incentive trips, it was fun nevertheless. have resolved to strive to hit the incentive trips.
anyway, while canvassing this afternoon, i realised that there exists a very strong wall. this wall is so strong that nothing can bring it down unless it is ready to be broken. that wall is around everyone’s mind. it’s called a mind block. everyone has one. no one can claim to be open minded because for everyone, there will be something that will hinder them and that hindrance usually is of a mental state of mind.
for example, i spoke to a friend earlier this evening, inviting him to come down for a job interview and trying to recruit him. immediately, he told me he can’t do this sort of job and that being a financial consultant is not his cup of tea. i mean, for goodness’ sake, he hasn’t even tried.
the same thing with me i guess. i tried hard to canvass. but somehow, i just couldn’t do it. and when i finally did start approaching people, i just couldn’t get them to stop or to sit down with me. it’s all a matter of confidence. or in my case, the lack of it. i don’t know why but i just am not confident enough. is it because i lack the knowledge? that couldn’t be the case because i have one of the best mentors around. so what is it?
until i know, i don’t think i’ll be able to be confident. yet, if i keep thinking i am not confident, i’m sure i will never hit my goals for this year. catch 22 or not? i know the solution is simple. but things are always easier said than done. funny. i always thought i was made of stronger stuffs than this. hah! for someone who is cool and calm in life or death situations, this should be nothing. but as it is, i’m reduced to a cowering turkey.
oh wells. tomorrow will be a new day and tomorrow, i will be better. as Winston Churchill said, “Success is never final. Failure is never fatal. It is courage that counts.”
yesterday was fun! ever since i started out this job of mine, i haven’t been really doing much cooking. yesterday, i get to cook my spaghetti and make my potato salad. glad to say i’ve not lost my touch. went on to meet Nigel, Rin, Wendy, Cassandra, Vincent, Randolph and Terence at Ang Mo Kio for steamboat.
went to this place in Ang Mo Kio where there was this $12 steamboat. it’s not really worth it because the selection was rather limited. moreover, i had to rush back home to eat all the good food again. spaghetti, potato salad, fruit salad, smoked chicken, ham and loads of drinks!
after the steamboat, all of us rushed over to Cass’ for SingStar. man. too bad i had to leave early. left her place in time to reach home before 12am. it’s sort of a new year’s tradition at home that we countdown with the family. feel kind of deprived at times because i haven’t had a chance to really countdown with friends.
anyway, time for the new year’s resolution.
· i resolve to learn driving this year. i failed to keep last year’s resolution to learn driving by June 2008. this year, by hook or by crook, i will get my license before 2010.
· i resolve to procrastinate lesser. procrastination is just like masturbation. it feels good but in the end, you’re only screwing yourself.
· i resolve to be better at what i can do. that means i want to be a better guitarist, better songwriter and better financial consultant. i also want to be better at cooking. i know i cannot be all things at once therefore i will prioritize. since i need money, i will be a better financial consultant first. next, it will be cooking better followed by playing the guitar. oh. i will sing better too! and lastly, be a better songwriter.
okay. just these 3 resolutions for now. last year, i made 3 resolutions and i have not kept a single one! this time, i better make sure i keep all.
just got back home from yet another outing with the 13Apostles. it was great! dress code for this event was semi formal. i came wearing my normal business attire. haha! was initially supposed to be meeting up with a friend before meeting the guys but the appointment was cancelled.
so i arrived at Junction 8 an hour ahead of time. spent that one hour in the library. spent that one hour thinking about a few stuffs. one of the stuffs was about next year. 2009 is just a few days away. what have i really achieved for 2008? that’s for another post.
anyway, dinner was great. dinner was at The Cafe Cartel. 2 huge platters… good food. and after that, we went on to have KTV. really enjoyed myself this time because this time i actually sang my favorite song! wahaha! gift exchange was great too! and oh man. i have gotten the license to bullshit!
i’ll post up pics of the license later.
Cassandra has all the other photos. i’ll grab it from her once she’s done resizing.
went for a party at Sabrina’s earlier this evening. was great. CK makes great food! hah! enjoyed myself alot. first of all, it’s like a themed party and since it’s christmas, the theme was to dress in red and green. i arrived in an olive green shirt and a pair of red horns. wooo! can we all say horny?!
anyway, we had this best dressed competition going in and contestants have to do a catwalk. the contestants were Boshi, Noelle, Shijin, Davis, Cadrina, Myself, Han and Jean. guess who won? Jean! she not only did the cat walk, she did some kind of dance. not going to blog what kind of dance it was but Davio had to close his eyes and shut his ears. oh and she danced it to a song by the Pussycat Dolls. go figure.
then after that, we kind of break up into our little little groups. i brought my guitar so i played a couple of songs. wooo! had so much fun. the food were great, the drinks were not too bad and hey! Tequila Rose isn’t bad at all! too bad i bought it at DFS in philippines. no idea where to get it in Singapore.
over all, i’ve had fun. the only time i have ever had this much fun was when i was with the Apostles over at Cassandra’s or during our yearly chalets. i foresee things will be changing for the better this coming 2009. seriously, the best thing about this year is me joining JCO. i will not change it for anything. although one thing i will change is that i will make sure i have more sales and that my attitude and mind sets were right from the start. took me a while to see that. i’ve still not fully absorbed that lesson yet but it’s only a matter of time before i will soar like an eagle.
Attitude determines the altitude.
i have been hearing that phrase for so goddamn long that i no longer know who was the first person who said that. could be PGT while i was still in the youth min… anyway, it’s really true. the past month, i was very upset due to some stuffs. during that time, my sitdown rate dropped as well. this time, with my mood and my attitude picking up, everything seems to be on the up and up as well.
i will make it. and i will show them all i made it. and i will laugh in the faces of those who didn’t believe i could and who wouldn’t support me.
was just looking back at my 2008 resolutions and i realised i have not accomplished any. and that sucks. heh. and to think i thought that 3 was reasonable enough. however, to be fair, i made that resolution when i was working in a different industry and with sufficient time for the gym and also driving lessons. however, i left that job much earlier than expected to fully realise my resolution.
on to 2009. i have already lost 7kg so far. it’s most probably due to stress. a lot more weight to lose but i think i am on track. in a way. as long as i cut down on the chocolates and sweets. just realised i am having far too many sweets for the past 2 weeks. see, when you aren’t closing cases during roadshows, you get bored. for me, when i am bored, i either take my guitar and play something or if that isn’t available, listen to music, play games or even catch a movie. when those aren’t available, food therapy works too. as such, i have better start to watch out again.
it’s already the 17th of December. i’m now laying a list of 2009 resolutions and this time, i will keep them. i’ll go over my new year’s list tonight and will pen it by 31st December.
i will be having a mini alcohol party this sunday night. bring along alcohol and you’re invited. no alcohol, you’re not. i have absinthe and some bailys and also bacardi and a half finished bottle of whiskey. too bad i don’t have tequila…
been having a nightly dose of Jim Beam and orange juice. it’s good. helps me sleep better at night and in the morning, i act a little bit more rationally. in a way.
i’m happier now. much happier. probably because of the drink.
attended Mass today as usual. 3rd sunday of the advent season. the second reading was from 1 thessalonians 5. the verse in question reminded of this post.
anyway, even though the circumstances were different, the main thing is the exhortation to be joyful and happy always. i guess i haven’t been doing that lately huh? too much things on my mind. but today it’s a fresh new awakening.
eaach week when i attend Mass, i never cease to be amazed at how there’s always a portion that’s relevant for me. it’s like, there’s always something that God wants me to know whenever i attend Mass. which is good.
anyway, earlier, i actually didn’t want to attend Mass. i slept at 2am last night playing my guitar. i still have my roadshow to attend today and i have to be in harbourfront by 10am. in fact, i’m actually here now at the booth as i’m writing this.
while i was debating to myself whether or not to attend Mass, something prompted me. i remembered telling God that as long as He’s for me, i will give my life back to Him. i told Him recently that even if i cannot seem to feel Him, i will hold on to His promise that as long as i stood by my faith, He will always be by my side.
anyway, i’m refreshed. spiritually, emotionally. physically am still tired but it’s nothing a couple of redbull wouldn’t fix. i’m sure things will be alright. i was very down the past couple of weeks but as Jean so succinctly put it, when you have reached the bottom… there is no where else to go but up.
looking ahead, my brother is doing well. one of the reason is because he believes. that’s my failing. i tend to look only on results and when the result i want isn’t seen, i tend to get discouraged. Jean always told me that the real hardest thing in this industry isn’t finding the prospects or doing the closings but rather, in actually picking ourselves up when we are down. and that’s what i will be working on.
yesterday, Edric asked me a question i have almost forgotten the answer to. this afternoon, Shannon asked me that same question as well during lunch and after lunch, when i met Han Wee, he asked me that very same question too.
that question is “what made you decide to join this line”.
when Edric asked me last night, i was caught short. i kind of forgot the reason why. was it to make money? but as i examined and thought about it, i remembered why.
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i am drunk. kind of. absinthe, vodka, bailys and heineken. anyway, drunken words are always spoken true and from the heart, which makes what I said pretty much true.
my blog’s her category doesn’t refer to just any one person. i’m human after all and i do have memories to sift through and contend with. although i do admit that sometimes, what i write may be a bit ambiguous. actually, to be honest, most of my posts have hidden meanings; what may seem to be referring to someone may actually be referring to someone or something else.
whatever the case, last night was good. i got drunk. and i am happy. i am contented. kind of.
ever since i have stopped attending church and cell regularly, things have been going from bad to worse. at least when i was still in church and cell, even though things weren’t always good, they have always been bearable. whenever i felt extra, i knew that no matter what, God accepts me for who i am. in fact, there’s a certainty in my heart that i’m never alone because God’s with me.
now though, i have lost that certainty. i have lost that feeling of security. even as i look back to all my old posts, i could see the difference in how i have gone through things. before, even when i have felt so down and out, i have always gone back to the certainty in God and rested in the knowledge that things will be alright. nowadays, i am worrying and worrying.
i know God is with me. but my heart doesn’t feel that way. sometimes, head knowledge isn’t enough if the heart has lost its conviction. just the same way, i know i want to stay in this line for as long as i can. but my heart is no longer convinced i can make it.
i just need to remember one basic thing. if God is for me, who can be against me? if God says ‘yes’, who can say ‘no’? but then again, if God says ‘no’… what can i do but go along with Him? i can do it quietly and peacefully, and trust that He will lead me to the right place, or fight till the end, where things will never work out right.
all i can do now is to just leave it in His hands. however, leaving it in His hands doesn’t mean i can just pray and not do anything. prayer and faith without action is dead. it’s just like this story i have read:
Jim was at the end of his wits. He has recently lost his job and he has 3 children and a wife to feed. His creditors were all chasing after him and if he doesn’t pay his mortgage loans in 2 months, he will have to foreclose his home.
He went to church and prayed:”Lord, I am not a praying man. However, You said as long as in desperation, we would turn back to you and ask for Your help, out of Your grace and mercy, You will not turn Your face away from me. Father, I ask for your help in striking this week’s lottery so that I may be able to repay a bit of my loans. Thank You. Amen.”
Jim did this every week until finally one day, his home was foreclosed. He then went to church again and bitterly asked God:”Lord! I have faithfully prayed and prayed. Yet nothing happened. Are You for real? Or this whole thing is just a joke and You don’t actually exist?”
This time, God replied:”Jim! Do Me a favor and meet me halfway! Go and buy a ticket!!! If you never buy a ticket, how do you expect Me to help you win the lottery?!”
moral of the story? i will need to make the first move. God will do the rest. but i have to make the first move.
i only hope i can remember this story when i go about doing my work. i can pray and all that but if i never do my calling or my canvassing, there’s no way for God to bring about a miracle.
i have this weakness. I tend to avoid the person i am interested in. maybe it’s because it’s easier to like the person from a distance. i don’t like confrontations. be it face to face or even through text on instant messenger or mobile. that’s one of the reasons why i dislike cold calling people for appointments. i don’t know how and where to start.
getting mind blocked again. and this time, i don’t know how to break free. i need a breakthrough yet again. but at the rate i am going, how do i see the sunshine? i’m getting distracted every day with all the things that are running through my mind.
firstly, productions. secondly, servicing. thirdly, it’s her. i know i should focus first and foremost on productions and on servicing and to forget about everything else. therein lies the problem. i cannot seem to separate my thought processes. for all the compartmentalisation i keep harping on, i cannot for the life of me separate work from personal life. i am trying. but the more i try, the harder it seems to get.
it’s yet another reason i am avoiding her. this way, i hope to let whatever feelings just die down. yet another reason that i am avoiding her is that this way, i don’t have to face the truth that it’s impossible between us. it’s always easier to dream than to face reality.
it’s my first night here and although i actually feel sleepy, i can’t fall asleep. part of me wishes for my bed back in Singapore, while another part of me loves how slow things suddenly feel over here.
there was a short mass earlier over here. tomorrow morning at 9am, we will be cremating my grandma. after that, i hope to find some sort of quiet time to reflect and formulate a new game plan for when i get back to Singapore.
anyway, was chatting with a friend last night where i mentioned i sort of am avoiding her. to be honest, i no longer feel comfortable with her. i know it’s some inferiority complex shit. and i will get rid of it.
back home. back in the philippines after about 10 – 12 years and i came back for a funeral. i was kind of complaining to my cousin that i wished i had gone back to the philippines a couple of weeks ago when my mum first came.
what happened then was that my grandma was hospitalised due to some internal bleeding. anyway, she was still alive then. my mum was back in singapore about a week or so before news hit that my grandma had passed away.
stupid. i should have gone back. i really should.
although to be honest, i kind of miss Singapore now. i don’t belong here. but where do i belong then?
will have to check in tonight by 10.30pm. flight’s scheduled at 12.40am and i hope it wouldn’t be delayed like my mum’s flight. hope i have everything i needed. planned to take pictures during the flight but seeing that it’s a midnight flight, i doubt there’ll be anything i could take.
maybe just before landing in Manila eh?
haven’t been back in the Philippines for more than 10 years and now i’m going back for my grandma’s funeral. this is not how i pictured my return.
got lost earlier on the way home. kind of. went to the office earlier this evening ostensibly to do callings. did a few but i left at about 9pm. walked to the bus stop and waited almost 30mins for bus 70 before realising that bus 70 doesn’t run at all past a certain time.
decided to take 130 to AMK instead. half way through the journey, i thought i recognise the area and i alighted. heh. ended up having to wait for another 130 because i couldn’t find my way. took the 130 to a place near Cass’ place before changing to bus 74.
anyway, when i got home, there wasn’t anything to eat. had to ask Melvin to buy some prawn mee from the coffeeshop near by. meanwhile, a thought struck me. i have a bottle of jim beam. i have OJ in the fridge. why not mix something up while i wait for my dinner-cum-supper. heh. not too bad. i like this mixture. i’ll try jim beam with soda or tonic later. will make it stronger. drinking alone sucks. and i still have my half bottle of absinthe. i’ll kill my liver this time for sure.
this exchange has some parallels in real life:
Shifu: Yes! I was! But now I ask you to trust in your master as I have come to trust in mine.
Po: You’re not my master. And I’m not the Dragon Warrior.
Shifu: Then why didn’t you quit? You knew I was trying to get rid of you, yet you stayed!
Po: Yeah, I stayed. I stayed because everytime you threw a brick at my head or said I smelled; it hurt, but it could never hurt more than everyday of my life just being me. I stayed because I thought if anyone can change me, can make me not me, it was you! The greatest kung fu teacher in all of China!
Shifu: I can change you! I can turn you into the Dragon Warrior! And I will!
Po: Come on! Tai Lung is on his way here right now! And even if it takes him a hundred years to get here, how are *you* gonna change *this* into the Dragon Warrior? Huh? How? How? How!
Shifu: I don’t know!
i ran away from mathematics during my pre-university days. dropped out to get away from maths. went into engineering instead. and met more maths. hated to hang out with people. now? i’m a financial consultant. figures and people are now a part of my life:
Oogway: One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it.
often times, i felt like quitting this industry…
Po: Maybe I should just quit and go back to selling noodles.
Oogway: Quit, don’t quit? Noodles, don’t noodles?
and finally… the secret ingredient to success:
Mr. Ping: The secret ingredient is… nothing!
Po: Huh?
Mr. Ping: You heard me. Nothing! There is no secret ingredient.
Po: Wait, wait… it’s just plain old noodle soup? You don’t add some kind of special sauce or something?
Mr. Ping: Don’t have to. To make something special you just have to believe it’s special.
Po: There is no secret ingredient…
the funeral will be held this coming friday on the 28th of November. decided to go after all. will be flying off on wednesday night. will land in the philippines on thursday morning. it’s a very easy choice to make. one which i was thinking about last night.
i can only see my grandma this last time. even if my shortfall is still very big, it doesn’t mean fuck if i hit my goal and never see her again. so i’m going. told my mum about the problem i am facing. she told me very simply: “resign.”
she asked: “even if you don’t take the time to come back and visit your grandma, do you think you will hit your goal of S$20,000API? do you think it will give you back your EP?”
when i told her that i may or may not, that i would never know until i try, she said that what’s certain is if i don’t go back, i will never see my grandma again. she’d rather i resign than not take this chance to pay my last respects.
while i certainly want to remain behind to really fight for my goal1, i don’t have the heart to argue with my mum. not now. she did gave me an ultimatum though. if i don’t hit my year end goal by the end of december, it’s time for me to go. she reminded me that that was my original promise to her. that if i don’t start to see cases flowing in, i would resign by end december.
i don’t know. just seems that the pressure has gone higher. maybe it’s for the better. maybe this time i will really work that much harder to see the cases come in. i don’t want to leave this industry. i love what i am doing and i have made friends. i am tired of having to keep uprooting myself.
- i have been fighting but no matter how i fight, it just doesn’t seem enough.[↩]
was supposed to be flying back to the philippines on monday. was getting my flight booked and all that but something stopped me.
if i were to fly off on monday, i’ll only be back on saturday night. i’ll be away for a week and i won’t be working. shortfall’s still too big and my time really is running out.
i’m sure my grandma would have wanted me to stay on and continue running for my goal. i really cannot afford to take any days off. i will fly back once i have settled everything.
grandma passed away last night. only got to know about it this morning at 5am. mum woke me up to let me know of my grandma’s passing. just made arrangements for my mum to fly back again together with my youngest brother.
i don’t know what i should be feeling. my grandma came over to singapore when i was about 14 or 15 and stayed till i was about 22. after that, when she went back to the philippines, i haven’t seen her since. mixed feelings actually. we didn’t get along very well. she was like the empress dowager. everything she said goes. even when she was clearly in the wrong at times.
although i do have to admit, when she was around, everything was so much better. my mum and my dad didn’t have to worry about the household stuffs. my grandma was the one who did everything. our meals were prepared by my grandma and she looked after my younger brothers. sure, my grandma and myself were often at loggerheads but in the end, no matter what, she is my grandma after all.
part of the reason we didn’t really get along was because she was often unreasonable. but on hindsight, the least i could do was be more understanding. now when everything’s said and done, i don’t even have the chance to see her even one final time…
this is a repost. sort of.
one more misconception about valentines day, its not the day to try to get a girlfriend or reveal your feelings for someone. its a day to go out with someone you’re already in a relationship with. not a day to begin a new one. don’t get caught up in the media hype. why is this so, you ask?
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didn’t realise that Rin and Wendy were at Chomp Chomp too. only found out when Rin got back at about 1.20am and replied to my msn message. heh. turned out that they were at Chomp Chomp around 10pm.
just so weird that we didn’t bump into each other. if i had known, i’d have given him a call. would have been able to take more pictures and this time, it would have been with Rin and Wendy as well!
i think we may have missed each other by minutes or something like that. we left Ice³ only about 11.10pm and if i’m not mistaken, they arrived at Ice³ probably at about 11.20pm or 11.30pm since Rin said they were there till about 12am only. ah well.
i’m not someone who’s pretty active on facebook. however, recently, due to some circumstances, i have been getting on facebook pretty frequently. one of the reasons i am online frequently on facebook is because of the networking aspect i could use.
if i’m able to garner contacts from it, why not. i need all the help i can get. anyway, i’m not the sort of person to approve every “friends” request. in fact, if i don’t know the person, i would either just ignore or delete them. something told me to message one of the friends requester today.
she told me that she doesn’t know me but that it doesn’t hurt to make new friends. so following that advise, i approved another person. turned out this other person knows me from my secondary school days. heh. that’s pretty cool because i have lost contact with almost all my secondary school friends. just a couple of weeks ago, i approved another person. that person was from my primary school.
i wonder what new surprises the ‘net has in store for me. hopefully it’s something cool. like maybe someone would come and hand me a blank cheque. failing that, a million dollars or so would still be nice. hah! bu honestly, meeting more old friends would be good.
what is life for? life is for living. and to live, one must get out of one’s comfort zone. only then can we truly say we have lived and are alive. one of the reasons why i am still here is because i know this job will help me achieve a personal breakthrough.
i’m not someone who’s very sociable. in fact, whenever i have to go out and canvass, i am wrestling with my inner demons. i have to wrestle with myself every single day to canvass. sometimes i win, sometimes i lose. but lately, i seem to be winning more often. it’s not enough though. i know it’s not enough. i want to achieve more. but i’m a little bit too laid back. i need to be more assertive.
a lot of times, i’ve been asking myself “is this the right job for me? i’m too shy to canvass and too shy to do cold callings. what can i do in this industry?” and then i think back to my one strength. and just what is that? it’s my passion for this industry and my passion for people. heh. while i was still attending the youth ministry, the slogan was “Passion for souls; Passion for God.” i’m now just channeling the same passion to something a little bit more tangible and a little bit more immediate.
i sincerely believe that what i am doing is beneficial to people. my only problem is i lack the knowledge to let them see the need. heck. i myself didn’t see the need until i came into this industry. i only hope i can reach out to more people.
i will do better tomorrow. i have to. i have something to prove.
this is one of the times where i am actually envious of those who have strong ties with friends. i used to think that not having friends isn’t really a problem. i mean look at me. what friends do i have? not much really. i don’t need many. i just need real good ones.
the way things are going though… i’m actually wishing i have more acquaintances. i’m actually wishing my network was larger. and i actually regret the fact that i’m not much more sociable.
i don’t have much people i could call to set appointments with. no appointments means no activities and no activities means i am not going to be closing any cases any time soon. and that sort of sucks. i’m also not very good with building rapport with my cold market. while my manager is very good at follow ups, i’m not. and it sucks a lot.
anyway, i don’t intend to rant about my friends or the lack of them. i admit i suck at building ties. so it’s not really their problem. just needed to vent my frustration. anyways, i trust God has a way of making things come together. i just wish clients would drop from the sky for now.
this week is the dawn of a brand new week. over the weekend, after having gone through my first ever road show, i have thought about things and this is what i have decided.
firstly, as per Simon Tong’s suggestion of closing at least a S$2000 api case a week, i will make it a personal challenge to close at least S$2400 api every week. S$2400 api translates to S$200 a month. not something too hard now right? especially when i know i have people who will be willing to support me. thank you Angeline1 and James2 for giving me your support that week. people often talk about financial consultants running away and resigning… but people also forget to realise that if you do not support us, if no one supports us… we really have no means of surviving. much as i want to stay here in this line for at least 10 years, it’s really your support that actually ensures we stay at least that long. so once again, thank you.
next thing i learnt is, a lot of times, when i canvass, i make the mistake of letting people go when they say they are busy. during my time at the road show, i realised that as long as one is persistent and one is sincere, people will be open. of course there will always be the one or two people who are seriously rude. they will just ignore us and pretend we are not there or they will give us dirty glares like we are nothing better than dirt.
third? smile. smile. smile. be sincere, be cheerful. and smile. nothing will melt an icy person faster than a sincere smile.
another thing is also to be honest. and sincere. and open. really really feel the passion and conviction in what you are doing. people can feel it. if you are not sincere, please leave the industry. it’s people who are not sincere that are ruining everything for the rest of us who really wants to provide the best service.
finally… and this is what Jean taught me. be confident. as long as you are sincere and confident that the product or plan you have recommended for your client is really what is good for them, you don’t have to worry about anything. sure, the client may decide that hey, he or she may not need this particular thing at the moment but it is really up to us to stick with our recommendation and let them know why. if they still insist, then do what they want. but always anticipate their needs and do try to get them to see the reason.
there are more i have learnt but i will not be writing them down now. i’m off to bed and tomorrow will be another day.
was supposed to be meeting a prospect today at 3pm. Jean came and accompanied me to Choa Chu Kang. heh. wished i could say i closed a case or something but i didn’t. like the title said, i got stood up. i don’t mind wasting my time. but it’s not just my time that was wasted but my manager’s time as well. and seriously, i feel really really bad.
all we want to do is to offer a helping hand. no matter how i see it or try to justify it, i guess it comes back to this: singaporeans are penny wise, pound foolish. tell me i am wrong. they want to save for a rainy day. fine. i’m not saying it’s wrong. but seriously. how much can you save? how much do you intend to set aside for a rainy day? what, in your mind, constitutes a rainy day? maybe you’ve been retrenched or you’ve gotten cancer? how about maybe an accident?
if you’ve been retrenched, i understand the need for ready cash. buying an insurance plan may not be the answer to that. however, if it’s cancer we are talking about or an accident… do you have the money to pay for the medical bills? or let’s put it this way. let’s pretend that your intended amount for that proverbial rainy day is S$100,000. how much do you set aside a month? if you were to set aside S$100 a month, that works out to be S$1,200 a year. S$100,000 divided by S$1,200 would be 83. you would effectively need to set aside S$100 for 83 years just to get S$100,000. can you guarantee you’ll even live that long? or even if you do manage to live such a long life, can you guarantee no disaster will strike? no illnesses and no accidents?
the truth is, you can’t guarantee all these. if you are lucky, you get illnesses or accidents when you are in your 70s or 80s. if you are unlucky… you get both during the prime of your life. if i was in that situation, i’d rather just die. it’s often said that in singapore, you can go ahead and die but you must not get sick. the medical and hospital bills alone will make you wish for death. with that said, tell me your savings for a rainy day is sufficient. go ahead. i will laugh in your face. unless of course you are one rich mofo.
i mentioned in a couple of posts back about my agency’s 3rd Quarter Review. it’s some sort like a day retreat. seminars and talks in the beginning held at a resort’s seminar centre followed by a barbeque at the end of the whole thing.
one of the more memorable speakers, Simon, mentioned something really really profound1. he said “E plus R equals O”. so what does that means? i was racking my brains thinking that it may be some obscure physics formulae or something. turned out i was thinking too much.
E stands for Events.
R stands for Reactions.
O stands for Outcome.
to summarise, events are something which has passed. you cannot change an event after it has passed. however, reactions can be controlled. you control your reaction to the event. and that reaction determines the outcome. for example, if i were to have overslept, i could react to it negatively but complaining about my alarm clock or whatever scapegoat i can think of, or i could react positively by just keeping mum and hurry about to do whatever i need – wash up, have breakfast or not – and then rushing to take a cab. true, either way, i may still end up late. but at least i wouldn’t have spoiled my day by feeling negatively.
it’s something similar to what i believe. i believe everyone has a choice. if i overslept, i have the choice of rushing to take a cab and trying to salvage whatever i can or i could just grumble and make myself and others around me miserable.
we often say other people have attitudes. the thing is, everyone have attitude problems. you may say someone is hardworking. other people may say he is a workaholic. someone may be enthusiastic in his work or in his conviction. others will say he is overzealous. everyone looks at people differently. we cannot make them like us. however, our attitude to things will actually result in us getting better at it and mastering them.
our attitude determines our altitude. our habit and our conviction will also determine our attitude. if we are habitually late and we do not have the conviction that we have to make it a point to be early, we will naturally chafe at people who pushes us to be early. like for example, my manager makes it a point to meet up with me at 9am every morning. to be honest, we never really do much when we meet at 9am. she’s either busy or if she’s free, it’s all about my prospect list because this final quarter, she mentioned that she’s going to focus on my activity rates and my project 1000.
considering that i don’t have much prospect list, i don’t really have a clue on what to do when i arrive at 9am. however, i make it a point to do so. if i come at 9am and don’t do anything at all because there’s nothing much, so be it. however, if i don’t come at 9am and there’s actually stuffs i can learn from my manager, i would have wasted the chance by not coming at all and i wouldn’t have learnt anything.
You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take. – Wayne Gretzky
Wayne Gretzky is a retired professional canadian ice hockey player and he’s been hailed as the greatest player in the history of the NHL. in ice hockey, the objective of the game is to shoot the puck into the goal. that quote of his is really true. especially when you put it into every other things.
it’s of no use thinking about whether a thing works or not unless we have tried it first and found out that it doesn’t work. if we do not try, we will never know. however, we also cannot just ‘try’. oftentimes, when we said “okay. i’ll try it.” we always end up not giving our all. why? because we’re just trying it out. there’s no conviction behind the try outs. i believe this final quote sums everything up.
Do. Or do not. There is no try. – Master Yoda, Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
- okay. another exaggeration of mine… but hey. literary license yah?[↩]
Ask and you shall receive.
Seek and you shall find.
Knock and the door shall be opened to you. – Matthew 7:7
three simple sentences. yet it’s so powerful. there are a number of verses in the bible which talks about asking. if you do not ask, you shall not receive. it’s simple. it’s a very simple truth. however, because it’s so simple, many people overlook it.
i do. i overlooked it. in fact, i let my fear, my ego and my pride cloud my knowledge. i have learnt from church and from sermons that all i need to do is ask. i have learnt during work that all i need do is just ask. yet time and time again, i dare not.
i dare not ask a girl out. i dare not ask for time extension to an assignment. i dare not ask for exam tips. i dare not ask for a discount. and now? i dare not ask for leads. there are so many people that walked past me and i did not dare ask them for leads. i did not dare ask them if they are interested in knowing more about savings or even about insurance. and in that, i have failed them.
i joined this industry not for myself. yes. the money is good. yes, time is my own. no denying that. but the fact that all that is just incidental is the main point. the only real reason i am in this line is because i have the knowledge and the power to help people.
someone asked me to ask and pray if this is the industry for me. i thought about it. this is my answer. i’ve long wanted to be a doctor. i wanted to save people by curing diseases. what happened? i dropped out of ‘A’ levels. dropping out of ‘A’ levels all but guaranteed that i will never become a doctor. so what next? by the grace and mercy of God, i got into the SCDF. guess what was i there? i was an ambulance medic.
as an ambulance medic, i was directly in the line between other people’s life and death1. so i thought to myself, “hey. since i cannot be a doctor, next best thing is to be an ambulance medic. maybe i could sign on as a paramedic!” it wasn’t to be. i never did managed to get signed on as a regular paramedic.
here i am now. maybe this is where i was meant to be. i have seen people dying or injured in accidents. i have seen people refuse to be admitted into hospital because they can’t afford it. so what happens? we leave them to die? of course not! but if they don’t want to help themselves by buying insurance when they are given the opportunity to do so, how do we help?
yet, when they are given the opportunity to buy when we are canvassing them, we are doing them a disservice if we do not impress upon them the need to buy. if they just brush us off once and we let them go, aren’t we not giving them a chance? maybe we hadn’t impressed the need yet. and if they go off and anything happens to them, could we honestly tell them that we had tried our best?
read this quote somewhere:”if you fail to shoot a bird for fear of missing, you have already missed it 100% because you did not even give it a shot.”
even as i am writing this while reflecting upon my own mistakes while canvassing, please do not make the same mistakes as me. i make the mistakes and write them down so others may read and learn from them. i will do better the next time around. and i will be playing golf very soon one day.
oh. and if you noticed the first three sentences of this post… did you noticed something special? the first three sentences starts with A, S and K. Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you shall find. Knock and the door will be opened. get it? ASK. isn’t it wonderful?
- okay. exaggerated a little bit. but you get the idea…[↩]
a couple of weeks ago, i was “taken off1” the MRS team. i will not write about what happened because it’s immaterial to this post. anyway, what’s past is past.
after being taken off the team, my first thought was one of relief. weird huh? but to be honest, i wasn’t really enjoying canvassing and all that. i’m not good with people. and i am painfully shy and self-conscious about canvassing. so what i’d usually do is just stand around, looking like a lost idiot before spying someone who looks friendly. then i would go up to him or her and ask for their time to do a short survey.
and i guess that’s the thing. i am sort of ‘begging’ for their time. and i hate to beg. call it pride, call it ego. but i would not humble myself to ask. it takes a lot from me to even ask a friend out. what more asking total strangers?
some tell me it should be the opposite. some tell me that asking strangers should be easier because they won’t remember us anyway. unless of course they become my client. which if they remember us is always a good thing. heh. i don’t feel the same way. i’d rather ask friends although when friends do reject or object to buying a policy, it hurts. it hurts on a personal level because i really do want to help them but they just aren’t giving me the opportunity to do so.
so to cut the long story short, after i was taken off the MRS team, i was very happy. time was mine again. during the time i was in the MRS team, i was often in the office by 9am. and i think to myself, what’s the use? none of my direct teammates are around anyway. and i’m not really comfortable with the people from my MRS team. i feel so extra. namely because my own teammates are either not around or always late, and the rest of the people from the MRS team are always so disciplined.
however, i realised after that that although time is mine again, i don’t know what to do with it. i don’t have that much leads anyway so the pool of people i can call are very small. after a week of appointments, i realised my pool of leads have run dry. and none of them bought a single policy. i think it’s alright if they have bought something but they didn’t and that sucked. not only have my pool of leads run dry, i have not made a single sale.
and friends have disappointed me. as always. that’s why although friends can trust me, i no longer trust them. what’s the use? in the end, they are the ones that disappoints you.
so when i heard that i was allowed back into the MRS team… wow. you really never know what you have until it’s lost. even though i have always felt uncomfortable with the MRS guys, there’s a synergy there. and at least, i didn’t feel i was alone anymore. i know my manager has been helping. but to be honest, she’s only one person. and i cannot expect her to hold my hands2 everytime.
so what have i learnt from this? discipline is good. having complete freedom isn’t good if one has no discipline. it’s the same as being a believer. there’s 2 choices to go. one where you are given complete freedom, but that leads straight down to hell. and another is a rough rocky road. but when you’ve made it past the finish line, it’s all fine.
i also learnt something else. i need to be a little bit more assertive. and a little bit more confident. time alone can tell whether or not i will be more assertive and confident in future but at least i know where i am lacking. and knowing is half the battle.
singaporeans are penny wise but pound foolish. they are so busy pinching pennies that they forget that a dollar extra spent today on insurance can help them save a few thousand dollars when the shit hits the fan.
for example, i was reading today’s newpaper. there’s an article on the second page about this woman who had a twig stuck in her feet for 5 weeks. according to the article, she had accidentally kicked a pile of twigs while out on a stroll and cut herself. she suffered extreme pain for a few weeks and went to a few doctors and hospitals for xrays.
to cut the long story short, a twig was actually embedded inside her foot the entire duration. her medical bills so far added up to S$6000. i have no idea if the woman in question is rich or whether she has any insurance coverage but nevertheless, how would you feel if you have to pay S$6000 on medical bills for an injury like that?
now think about contracting cancer. or how about getting a stroke? or a heart attack? what about other forms of accidents? or a loss of life?
seriously i am getting frustrated with some of my friends. to be honest, i don’t really care now if they don’t buy any form of insurance from me as long as they at least have some proper coverage. and please. S$10,000 is NOT proper coverage!
why do i say S$10,000 is not proper coverage? think about this. if you are a polytechnic graduate, your pay should be between S$1,600 – S$1,800. as such, your annual salary would already be between S$19,200 and S$21,600. and if you are a university graduate? you would be commanding a minimum of S$2,000 per month. that’s roughly S$24,000 a year!
i don’t think S$10,000 is enough. already, the article mentioned the bills as S$6000. is your life only worth S$10,000?
i’m disappointed. someone told me recently that he would rather save his money than buy a policy which will lock him for 25 years. but he doesn’t get the point does he?
along the way, i realised i have lost my direction. i’ve lost my bearing and i’m kind of walking aimlessly. i was with a friend yesterday when we talked about goals. i’m not going to write about her goals here as i believe it’s her own goals and she can share her goals on her own blog.
anyway, i shared with her some of my goals. one of them involves me playing golf. i’ve shared this goal with a few people before and some of them asked me why. of all things, they asked me why my goal was just to play golf.
the real reason isn’t the golf. it’s just the idea that if i don’t like to go to the office on a particular day, i don’t have to. i like the idea that any time i want to go off and play a round of golf, all i’d need to do is probably just give my secretary or personal assistant a call and then off to the club i go!
there’s this sense of freedom that’s just so liberating. you’re not subjected to the rat race where you need to dump in time and effort just to make ends meet.
thing is, i’m losing it. i’m getting too bogged down and too stressed out with things. seriously, sermon 2 weeks ago was good. the main thing i brought home was the message that i just need to ask.
last night, i was kind of flipping through the bible when i came across this verse.
You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. – James 4:2
i thought that that was the answer to my prayers. and then something prompted me to read on.
When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. – James 4:3
what is the reason i am in this line? am i really here in this line because i want to make money? or because i want to do good? along the way, my priorities have kind of shifted. i no longer know what i truly want. need to go pray hard about it.
i have been trying and trying to improve my work flow but it’s not happening. i can’t seem to get into the right working mood. i want money, success and all the trappings of a successful career but i can’t even get into step.
i think i need a makeover. a mental makeover. i’m thinking of taking a week off and do something. i want to first rearrange my room. and while doing that, rearrange my thoughts and my focus. loads of ‘i wants’ but not enough actions to back it up. only thing is, if i ask and i do receive that week’s off, how do i ensure i actually do what i want to do?
first up on the list, rearrange my desk. it’s no longer conducive to work. next, rearrange the corner of my room where i dump my bags. it’s now becoming really messy. my laptop’s power adapter is missing somewhere in the pile. after that, rearrange my mind.
heh. i need to stop procrastinating. and i need to start developing a system that will work.
if i have to describe myself now using the analogy of a boat, i’d say i’m a boat with a shallow hull, huge sails and a small anchor.
easily moved by the winds, i can go very far. but with such a shallow hull, i need to be careful not to be overwhelmed by heavy swells. huge waves can and will swamp me easily. with a small anchor, i am easily moved by the currents and by opposing winds.
i’m taking the day off. really tired. overwhelmed somewhat with the knowledge of the odds facing me. overwhelmed with the responsibility this profession has been given. seriously i am here for only a short time and i don’t know if i am strong enough. i need strength of will and clarity of purpose; i am currently in short supply of those.
anyway, taking the day off and will be activating my phone’s answering machine.
i’m tired. i’m tired of things. seriously. all i want to do now is just crawl into a cool, dark cave and stay there.
one of the stuffs on my mind is that fact that there are people who are irresponsible. firstly, i’d like to rant about my mum’s friend. this woman does not believe in insurance. i was hoping that there might be some legitimate reasons for it. that way at least i could educate her or allay her fears and all that. turned out the story isn’t what i thought it would be.
she claimed she’s lost money in insurance before. i was thinking, unless it’s some form of investments, there really shouldn’t be anyway a person would lose money right? maybe she was unable to claim anything? but no. the reason was simple. her husband has many friends in the insurance business. so he’d go and support them. and when they resign, he’d surrender the policy. what a fucking dumb thing to do. so now, according to her, she no longer believes in insurance. hello? that’s like one of the dumbest thing i have ever heard! so just because of this, she’s willing to take a chance that nothing will happen to her or her husband or her child?
another of my mum’s friend claims that her sister is currently suffering from cancer and she couldn’t make a claim. i have no other information so i don’t know what’s the story. all i can hope for is my mum would at least let her friend know i may be able to help find out more.
and then, there are other people. these people know that they don’t have money. so they shy away from any insurance or savings plan. but can’t they tell that the whole point is to help them? they jolly well know that life right now is hard. they can’t afford a S$50 or a S$70 savings plan. however, they can afford the latest PSP, the latest handphones, etc. i tell them that it’s only S$50 or S$70 a month and they balk at it. i tell them the cheapest we have is S$30 which at least covers accidents and they cringe. they said they’re stretched out and even that additional $1 a day is too tight.
tell me. if you’re in that situation and you get saddled with hospitals bills, how the fuck are you even going to survive? i am seriously at a lost for words. all the fucking cheapos can’t afford at least a S$30 a month accident plan but they can afford a new PSP, a new handphone… i wish i could be there on the day they get cancer to say “i told you so.”
i’d honestly love to have a chance to gloat at them and point fingers and laugh even more. for they are nothing but fools. i am offering them a chance to rise above the mud they are stuck in and they refuse…
okay. now i am just bitter.
there’s this guy i spoke to 2 weeks ago. he’s a dispatch rider. he told me he’s 23 years old and that he wants to get married by 30. that’s 7 years away. he’s got no savings at all. no accident insurance as well. i proposed a S$70 savings plan and he said he’ll take it. he signed on the dotted lines and i thought all was fine. then he told me that his pay only arrives on the 22nd and that he has no cash to pay for the first payment.
ever since then, i can never seem to contact him. his number is real. no doubt about it. he picked up and answer my call a few days ago. after that, he refused to pick up my calls.
like i mentioned, i’m offering people a way out of their circumstances. it seems they just love the mud they are in. it’s always easier to wallow in self-pity than to climb out of the rut. i should know. i’ve been there.
heck. even now, some days i just want to crawl somewhere quiet and throw pity parties for myself. like what i currently feel like doing. so, sue me.
tired. didn’t sleep very well for the past few days. i haven’t been closing cases and it sucks. once you’ve started closing a case or two, it’s like a drug. you just have to continue closing. heh.
i don’t know how or where to find cases to close but i will do it. tomorrow. too tired now.
i feel torn inside. in a way. i feel guilty on weekends. my weekends are generally unproductive but i just don’t want to work on weekends. especially on sundays. i need my weekends to recharge.
i’m not a people person and dealing with people day in and day out saps my mood. when i get home, i just don’t want to do anything more than just grab my guitar and strum a few notes. i haven’t even been writing any new songs lately.
i don’t think i can hit the challenge with my current pace. but i cannot give up. everyone seems to be so on fire. i don’t want to be the crab that pulls them down. i have to carry on.
but seriously it just sucks. some days, i just want to stay in bed and crawl underneath the quilt. heard some rather distressing news too. not only do i have to hit the MMT, the MMT kind of snowballs if i don’t hit it. feels like only a matter of time before i get buried under an avalanche. gah. it’s a friday and instead of me going out and celebrating the fact that it’s the weekend already, i am here thinking about work. sheesh.
ever since i started working in this line, i told myself i am not going to bed without at least learning something new. be it something about myself, about the world around me or maybe even how i interact with things or people, i have to learn at least one new thing.
i mean, face it. learning is a life long process. the day one stops learning is the day one is already dead. if ever a day goes by without someone learning something new, it’s really a sad day for that person because his mind is closed.
so what have i learnt today? basically, i learnt that i’m a person who likes convenience. everyone loves convenience. but it seems my love of convenience have gone a little bit too far. i’ve since learned that i’m a little bit too quick with certain words.
knowing the problem is half the battle won. the next step is consciously taking steps to rectify the problem. that will take some time but at least after putting it in writing, things have gained a certain perspective.
next thing i have learnt is that this line i am in is not very tolerant of mistakes. you get to really grow up pretty fast in this business because results are almost instantaneous. take people skills as an example. anything i learnt today, if i put it into practise tomorrow, i will more or less see the difference. of course practise makes perfect. however, since you can see whether or not what you learnt are effective, it’s very easy to change course assuming that you are willing to learn and to change.
i wrote about the crab theory in a post 2 years ago.
one of the things i wrote about in that post was about me meeting people and about myself not being good enough. looking back, i can see how i’ve grown. i blogged that post a few days after the new sem started and after the NPSU and EE FOC camp.
i swore never to join any FOC camp again because i’ll have to do the same things over and over again. basically, i’m not a people person. i only pretend to be. probably cause i’m afraid of being alone. but look at me now. april this year, i went back for FOC. and now? i’m doing financial consulting. a line where i have to go out and meet people.
do i get tired? of course i do. but i have to say i’m no longer what i was before.
anyway, the crab theory.
people are just like crabs. ever seen crabs being sold in those wetmarkets? whenever one crab seemed to be able to climb out from the tank or basket, the other crabs sort of rush over to pull it back down.
…
i’ll continue on this post later or something. i suddenly lost my train of thought.
so. lately i’ve been doing pretty well. i’ve closed 4 cases so far with 3 more cases pending. 1’s pending payment and 2 more is pending paperwork. of these 7 cases, 5 are from friends and family. one’s actually from my aunt and since it’s my aunt we’re talking about, that actually means alot.
i’ve come a ways from a few weeks ago huh? i remember complaining and blogging down that if i don’t see results by end of september, i am leaving the industry and heading to london, for better or worse. now i don’t have to do that. actually, i can’t do that. like i mentioned, 5 out of my current 7 cases are from friends and family. i cannot betray their trust in me by leaving just because i am not seeing results.
someone told me once that if i wanted to leave this industry, there’s actually a million excuses i can generate. however, the one reason i must stay on in this industry is the strongest. i must think of my existing clients.
and it is for them that i will stay on. to hell with everyone else who thinks i cannot make it in this line. if i were to listen to them, i’d probably have killed myself a long time ago because those people are also probably the ones who’d have encouraged me to kill myself were i inclined to be suicidal.
i will fight on for the ones who believed in me and who continues to be my support and my encouragement. you guys know who you are.
that’s the usual response i get when i speak to certain people. or according to Astley “you pesky insurance salesmen”.
but to be honest, i don’t understand why people look upon us with such suspicions. all we want to do is to help people make as much money as possible. all we want to do is to help people be prepared for a rainy day.
this is a question i asked a person not too long ago. i asked him “what are you saving for and what’s the motivating factor that forces you to save?”
he replied “why. i’m saving for a rainy day of course!”
yes. that’s a good answer. but what kind of rainy days are we talking about? is it major or critical illnesses? or major accidents? or probably even a death in the family? because to be frank, if the rainy days are any one of the above, any savings one may have is not enough.
be realistic. how much can one save in the course of a lifetime without making any investments? unless one doesn’t have any expenses at all, one can save his entire income. and how much is that income? there’s still government taxes to be paid after all. and what about inflation? don’t tell me that you don’t need to eat at all? or drink? cause these basic necessities cost money and with inflation, these expenses will grew each year.
a plate of chicken rice only cost S$2 a few years ago. these days, you’re be hard put to find a plate that’s only S$2. so without investments1, your savings can only go so far.
however, that’s where i come in. or rather, where financial consultants come in. we exist because there’s a need for proper financial planning. and insurance actually plays a role in financial planning. as an example, for the rainy day scenario i have illustrated above, we will cover for a certain sum assured depending on the premium paid.
unlike with a pure saving plan with the bank, even if you have been with us for a few months, as long as anything happened after any waiting period or things like that, we will actually pay out the entire sum assured! for example, with a sum assured of probably S$100,000 and a premium of only maybe S$200 a month, if by the 6th month with us you were to contract cancer, we will give you S$100,000. how much would you have paid so far for that S$100,000? you would have paid only a total premium of $1200!!
now imagine if you saved with a bank and you contracted cancer. tell me. what can you do with a mere $1200?
you weigh the odds and let me know.
- and these actually have certain risks attached to them right?[↩]
one of the reasons i’m beginning to actually love working is because of the implementation of the ‘buddy system’. it was spoken off before but we never did used it. it wasn’t until wednesday itself when i came down for MRS did i see the power behind it.
actually, i think we started it on monday. on monday morning, my team met up to discuss how we’re going to move forward as a proper team. what we used to do before was come as a team, be a team in name and that’s probably about it.
anyway, there is power in a buddy system. for one thing, you’re not alone. two heads are always better than one and in a buddy system, if one is down, the other one can help pull him out. of course there’s always the danger that the one that falls may pull the other down but that’s why there is also a support infrastructure behind it.
this is almost the same as having a cell group in church. i miss church. i do.
the Laws of Attraction works. not going to blog about what it is or what it does. but i have to say, it works. the buddy system is also something which works and which produces results. closed 2 cases yesterday and collected 2 leads.
even though i didn’t managed to close any cases today, i did manage to pull one sitdown and collected 6 leads. i think that’s much better than what i have done to date. not to mention, i have great team mates.
the guys may or may not be reading this but here’s to Jennifer, Jack, Stephanie, Joshua, Roland, Angela and Farhan. you guys rock. my managers are great too! thanks Chai Nee, Jean and Joey!
i seriously am starting to like doing MRS on a buddy system. the results can be seen almost immediately.
closed my second case. ’nuff said.
the first 3 cases are something akin to those rite of passages that people in some culture practises. usually those who fail to achieve these first 3 cases wouldn’t last long in this line. hence my apprehension.
to date, i have 1 confirmed case closed and 1 more pending. that pending case has actually been closed except for the fact he has yet to see a manager. the first 3 cases has to be done in the office in the presence of a manager. that second case will be closed tomorrow. need just 1 more case.
what happens after this 3 cases are closed? well, simply put, i can start closing cases on my own without needing to bring my client to the office. to be honest, i have a few people lined up amongst my relatives who have expressed interest in what i can offer; they just didn’t like the idea of having to come down to the office.
it also means i can start to close cases during roadshows as opposed to just canvassing for leads.
heh. friends, i need not just your encouragement and spiritual support. i need help financially too. for just less than $3 a day, you can have your accidents covered. do give me a ring yah?
felt much better about things after having spoken to Joshua and to Jean this morning. and meeting up with Dorothy helps too. she’s funny.
anyway, the main stuffs of what was spoken is kind of how i look at things rather negatively. and i realised just how much a crutch that whole london thing has become. meh. having a headache now with all the thinking done on the bus ride home.
will write more later.
heh. kind of depressed lately. depressed and stressed out. although to be honest, i probably don’t look like either. it’s already wednesday of my third week as a licensed financial consultant. 20 days and all i’ve managed to accomplish thus far are 2 cases.
my parents are not exactly supportive. my friends… let’s just say they are supportive enough. but when it comes down to it, seems to me that they are not the sort who’d want to commit to anything concrete beyond the “i’ll think about it” part.
can’t blame them though. it’s probably my fault.
but like i mentioned on twitter, i’ll probably just give myself until the end of september. after that, if i still don’t have substantial sales, i’ll be off to london. start anew over there. but knowing me, it’ll all just be the same old.
oh wells.
i don’t think i am cut out for this. i say i want the challenges. but i handling them as well as i should? i don’t know. i can’t even close my first 3 cases easily. really thankful to both Indra and Weiyong. the both of them helped me. now i just need a 3rd case to be closed in the office.
who can i ask next? anyone reading this wants to help me out?
i hate to bring this topic up again and again but i feel the need to do so yet again. yes i am with Prudential Singapore. i am a financial consultant representing Prudential Assurance Company Singapore. part of what i do involves selling insurance policies.
but what i actually do apart from just selling insurance policies is to help my clients manage their finances. i help my clients do a financial analysis and find out their needs and wants. then i try to tailor a plan to address their needs and after their needs are met, to cater to their wants.
what do i mean? imagine you are 27 years old and you have just started working. imagine that you have no savings and no insurance coverage. you are living with your parents who are in their 50s. now imagine something happens to you and you are permanently disabled. will you be able to provide for yourself? will you be able to provide for your parents? will your parents be able to provide for you and take care of your basic necessities? if they are able to, for how long are they able to do so?
those are just some of the basic needs. let’s say you want to start a family. will you be able to to provide for your wife and children? what happens if you pass away while your children are still young? are you going to burden your wife with debts? how about your children’s education? if nothing ever happens to you or your wife, there’s still the question of your children’s education and their future. will they be able to study in prestigious universities? or will they end up having to drop out from school because they cannot afford tuition fees?
these are just some of the things i can help with. many times however, people just don’t want to think about their finances beyond getting enough to make end’s meet. and when i try to ask people out to discuss this, i get slammed in the face.
never mind getting slammed in the face by strangers. i get shot back by people i know! anyway, it’s good to be in this line because you get to see who you can count on to help. i was asking a friend to help me out by listening to my presentation. i told him it’s just a presentation and there’s no obligation to buy anything from me. next thing i know, he kept saying i intend to sell him stuffs and all that when i seriously just want to meet up to do a presentation and to garner feedback.
oh wells. all i can say is that if he thinks that way, then it’s just too bad.
okay. i am now sort of panicking. seriously. the iPhone is coming on the 22nd and my current contract only ends somewhere in september. my pay will only arrive in september 10 and it’s not even confirmed if i will be paid if i don’t hit my quota.
heh. and my skills at canvassing is non-existent. canvassing is really nothing different from salting.1 we stop people along the way and try to find time to share with them stuffs. in the case of salting, it was sharing the gospel. now? it’s the sharing of savings awareness or something like that.
basically, i have to deal with rejections. you know it’s seriously weird. i ran away from mathematics by dropping out of my ‘A’ level course. i had to face it during my EE days in NP. i have an overwhelming fear of rejection and i try to hide it by pretending it doesn’t bother me. now i have to face it. and i know if i were to face it and achieve a breakthrough, i will also achieve a breakthrough in my sales.
Angela said it rightly when she said that if we were to try to run away from our fears or from our challenges, we will continually be placed in positions where we WILL need to face that particular challenge and fight to over come it.
oh and just for the record, seriously has become my new buzzword. that and rawr!
and i’m seriously going to rush on my prospective client’s website in the hope that once he’s approved of it, i could just deliver immediately and collect the moolah for my phone.
- something i did while undergoing training to be a spiritual parent in trinity.[↩]
just got home not too long ago and checked my email as per my SOP. anyway, saw an email from Singtel announcing that the iPhone is arriving in Singapore on the 22nd of August, 2008. damn. i’m going to have to beg, steal or borrow money as i’m pretty much broke.
i’ll only be getting my pay somewhere on the 10th of September and at the moment, it doesn’t seem i’ll even be getting paid as i’ve yet to make a single case. this is so fucking shitty. the feeling i mean. the feeling of knowing it’s here and that the wait is almost over and yet, i may not be able to get my hands on one even after my reservation.
rawr! seriously this placed a serious kink in my plans.
i want to play rockband! after some training at the office yesterday, i went to a friend’s place to chill. it was fun. played rockband and drank my absinthe. it’s a pity not everyone likes it. paid S$250 for it and i saved it just to drink it yesterday alone.
not exactly alone lah. another friend of mine likes the taste too. although he did agree with the rest that the smell was horrible. bleh. in other news, i have been reading this webcomic. it’s awesome! oh and the second album of The Click Five has lost it’s bubble gummy feel. i like the new album. took me some time to jot it down cause i haven’t really heard it until just this afternoon.
and i like The String Quartet’s tribute to Taking Back Sunday. real nice. nice songs to listen to on a sunday. and speaking of sundays, i attended Tagalog Mass earlier at the Church of Saint Vincent de Paul. it was weird. i mean, i felt like a fish out of water. i was the only chinese guy there i think.
anyway, the priest said a couple of stuffs which made perfect sense. one of the stuffs he said was about swimming. faith is like swimming. if you struggle, you will sink. but if you relax and just lie down, you will float. in the same way, when we are faced with problems, do not struggle but just trust in God. the second thing he said was about a commercial in the Philippines.
the first scene was set in a kitchen. a woman is shown cutting some stuffs. however, a close up of the knife shows that it doesn’t have a handle and the woman was having a hard time cutting up the veggies. the next scene shows a man trying to open a door but he was having trouble doing so because there wasn’t a doorknob. the tagline of the commercial? “isn’t it hard if there’s nothing to hold on to?” guess what the commercial was about? initially i thought it had something to do with insurance or the likes. heh. it was about a new bar of soap which has handles on it made of soap too. since the soap supposedly have handles now, it’s easier to use. meh.
okay. i guess that’s about it for today’s post. nothing much to say regarding my personal life or love life. my love life is pretty non-existent anyway. sigh.
heh. i have a long way more to go. confidence level is seriously dipping. stress level on the other hand is moving up.
and i guess what’s more pressing is the fact that i’m still not receiving a paycheck. and right now, the paycheck would really be appreciated. this is the first time since i left school that i have seen the money in my bank dip to such an alarmingly low level.
i guess right now, some blessings would be good. need a breakthrough. and i needed it yesterday.
past few days have been fun. sort of. been going out and meeting friends. specifically long lost friends. friends that i have lost contact with for the past 3 years or so. it’s good to get back in contact. but it’s not that great that it had to take a job change for me which involved making appointments to actually initiate this reconnection.
i don’t know about them but i don’t want to lose contact with them again. all the memories. was with Seekee earlier and whew. it seemed like just a few months back instead of 3 years. not much awkwardness. was out with Jane last night and Jachin yesterday afternoon.
hah! all the things we talked about. i missed them. in a way. and it was my fault we lost contact. i fully admit it. i walked away because i thought they didn’t need me. i walked away because while they were growing, i wasn’t and i felt left out. i walked away becausei thought i didn’t need them.
i was wrong. and i don’t want to make the same mistake again. and somehow, i seem to feel that in a way, with the 13A, i was kind of doing that. only recently did i came back to join them for outing. i like to run away from people because i cannot stand the fact that i am not growing and i feel envious? i don’t know. loads of issues to deal with personally.
and while speaking with Jane last night, i realised there’s some things i kept buried underneath and that even though it’s buried, it’s not settled. oh wells… let go, let God.
i’m honestly frustrated with how things are going on at home. it’s not the familial relationships. things are okay between my parents, my brothers and myself. what i’m frustrated about is how my mum seems to take certain things lightly and other things for granted.
i fully understand why my mum doesn’t want me in this line. for one thing, like i have mentioned so many times before, there are no employer contributions for my CPF. and that isn’t good because if i am a salaried employee, while i am contributing a certain percentage of my monthly income to the CPF, my employer will have to make a monthly contribution as well. that means my monthly gross pay is actually higher than it looks on paper.
my dad’s a chef. well… to be technically correct, he was a chef. he used to be a chef in a couple of restaurants and hotels. right now, my dad’s cooking for a seafood restaurant in a coffeeshop. it’s not a bad job. it’s a respectable job. however, he doesn’t have employer contributions on his CPF.
what does that mean for my dad and mum? basically, my mum’s the one who has CPF and she’s the one who has been paying for my education. mine and my brothers. that also means my mum now has not enough money in her CPF account for her own use. either for investments or for even my youngest brother’s education.
so anyway, earlier this afternoon, i brought up to my mum a couple of plans i thought she’d like. one is a shield plan which uses CPF to pay the annual premium. i was banking on the fact that it might be attractive to my parents simply because they wouldn’t need to fork out cash and use their CPF instead. guess what my mum said? she said “why not you sell this plan to others first? if there are people buying from you, then i’ll buy it from you too.”
i think that was a pretty stupid statement. and that one statement is seriously enough to erode confidence in myself. i am just starting out and i have not closed even a single case. now my mother is telling me that basically, she’d rather others buy from me first before she’d support instead of supporting me outright. also, she doesn’t seem to understand that if she holds out, what if something happens one day? and by then, it may already be too fucking late for me to get her a plan.
it’s pretty irresponsible. i don’t know. maybe i’m being irresponsible. maybe’s it’s her. but it is really irresponsible. think for a moment. were anything to happen to herself or my dad, i honestly doubt any of their insurance coverage will be enough. secondly, if something were to happen and if there’s no coverage, who’s the one who have to think of something up?
i’m the eldest amongst my siblings. and currently, i’m the only one who is ‘working’. and like i mentioned, since i am just starting out, i don’t have savings too. nothing. so if anything happens to them, boom. everything’s gone.
maybe i am thinking too much. but i guess i have to start planning ahead. who else would do it?
the first half of yesterday was pretty free and easy. actually to be exact, it was pretty boring. Jean asked me to meet her at 9am ostensibly for breakfast. actually, she met with me only to pass me a copy of The Sunday Times and to tell me that “even if you don’t read the newspapers, make it a point to please read the money section of this paper every week.”
anyway, she told me she had to rush back to the office as she had a meeting at 9.30am and that she’s kind of running short on time. she then told me she’d be asking someone to meet up with me to share how he first started and all that beginners stuff.
as someone who’s pretty new, i don’t have much stuffs to do in the office except to attend meetings or trainings. pretty much of what i would have to do there in the office are stuffs i could do at home. things like doing cold calling and arranging for appointments. the thing about being in the office is that since i really am new, there’s always someone i can turn to in the office for help. another reason is that at least there will be our managers around to ‘push’ us.
anyway, i had a meeting at 2pm. however, from 9.30am to 1.30pm, i basically just sat around stoning and trying to think of people to call. it’s not easy. to be honest, it’s actually a mindset i have that i would be rejected. it wasn’t so bad after a few calls although i still did face some rejections. frankly speaking, i’d rather be rejected by complete strangers than to be rejected by friends.
right after the meeting, i did some calls and found a few people were quite willing on the whole to meet up. the catch is that they weren’t ready to actually set me a definite date to meet up. that’s not really good in the long run because they could always postpone meeting up indefinitely.
anyway, today would be a pretty long day. i have 3 appointments lined up today. i don’t think i could close any of these 3 but hey, at least i tried. i do have a minimum monthly production criteria of S$4000 API to meet though. that doesn’t sound too tough is it? that means, as long as the cases i close adds up to a monthly premium of $333 a month, i should be able to meet that minimum target.
tomorrow morning, i will embark on my first morning run. giving myself an hour. for this first run, i’ll do it slowly. and i’ve found a pretty good website. thanks Jeremy!
since i am planning for 16 weeks, this website is pretty timely. it’s just nice. if i follow it faithfully, 6 pack abs in 16 weeks doesn’t sound too far fetched. and when i said i wanted to lose 16kg, what i actually meant was more of slimming down and losing all that flab. if i gained weight due to increased in muscle mass but i lost the flab in the middle, i’d still say the program is a success.
wish me luck guys.
every first sunday of the month, the Church where my mum attends has a thrift store. i love to visit the thrift store just for the books. here’s a picture of my latest acquisitions. altogether, these books only cost me S$15. it’s really worth it. and every month i get more books.
came across this website. seriously, this is one website that actually made me shed tears.
i never told my dad i loved him. it’s feels awkward. i don’t really spend time with my dad. even when i was growing up, my dad was working very long hours. what with my class starting in the morning and all that, i never really get to see my dad when i was young.
i’d be off to school in the morning before he wakes up and when my dad gets back home at night, i’d be in bed. it’s only these past 3 years during my poly days that i’m taking the trouble to stay up till late at night just to wait up for him.
while growing up, even though my dad was never around much, i never had any problems. whenever i had problems with school, i just need to let my mum know and she’ll tell my dad. the next morning, my dad would wake up very early to help me with whatever problems i had with my mandarin. sad to say though that i still suck in mandarin.
whenever people ask me how do i know God exists, i would tell them i know that God exists because my dad’s here with me. there was a time when i was very young when my dad got into a bad accident. he used to ride a bike when he was younger. i was about 6 or 7 years old at the time. while riding home from work one night, a car suddenly braked in front of my dad. my dad couldn’t serve or brake in time he he crashed into the car. the impact threw my dad over the car.
by all accounts, my dad should have died then. it’s really by the grace of God that he’s still alive. not so many years ago, probably 8 or 9 years ago, my dad got involved in another accident. this time, my dad was driving a van. it’s almost the same thing. a car braked in front of my dad and while my dad managed to brake in time to avoid hitting it, a car that was behind my dad’s van didn’t have time to brake.
that car smashed into my dad’s van and my dad’s van ended up getting sandwiched between both cars. according to paramedics, the fact my dad got out of the van without any serious injuries except for bruises was miraculous. the cab of the van was smashed. it was God’s grace again that my dad’s still alive.
i still haven’t told my dad how much i love him. i haven’t told him how much he means to me. i’m constantly worried i may not have the time to tell him. nothing’s wrong with him or anything. but i don’t want to ever get to the point where i will regret not letting him know.
but somehow, i bet if i didn’t blog about this, i would forget everything after going to bed. most of the time nowadays, whenever my dad’s home and i don’t have anything on, i try to talk to him about cooking and all that. my dad was never a sports person. neither am i. so we don’t talk about sports. we don’t really talk much since like i mentioned, he works fairly long hours.
it’s only these past 2 years when i started cooking and learning from my dad that we both are able to communicate. you can see how my dad loves cooking. when he talks about cooking, you can feel and see the passion there. sometimes, i’m kind of envious about other people’s dads. when i was younger, i used to ask myself why’s my dad a chef. why couldn’t my dad be a business man or a doctor or a lawyer. now, i wouldn’t want my dad to be any other.
i can’t see my dad having such passion for other things. when my dad talks about food and ingredients, you can see my dad’s eyes twinkle. learnt alot from him. seriously i have no idea why i am blogging this down. i’m probably just being silly and just affected by the website i saw. still… dad, i love you.
just read this quote: “if you fuck up, only true friends will be by your side.”
to be honest, when i read this quote, it just doesn’t sound right. let me rephrase it. “when you fuck up, your true friends are those who remained by your side.”
i guess that your true friends will be those that stick by you, even when you screw up. however, if what you mean by fucking up includes treating your friends like dirt, i don’t see how they would remain by your side.
it’s all about trust. there’s always giving and taking from both sides. if you expect others to always be by your side, you also have to be by their side. if you drive them away by your actions, your words and your behaviour, i don’t see how you are being a true friend to them.
if you feel that you don’t have to be there for them but they must be there for you, then you are sadly mistaken. you are just being selfish. the true friends aren’t true friends at all but just helpless victims. on one hand, they truly are trying to be your friend. on the other hand, the more they stay, the more they are taken advantage of. in that case, if i was that friend, i’d rather not be a friend than remain as a victim.
met with up P for dinner at little india. went to this restaurant called ‘The Banana Leaf Apolo’. i found the food not bad. i mean… i’ve never had indian food in a restaurant. usually the most i’d have is like the briyani or prata from a coffee shop.
anyway, i had the chicken briyani set while she had the mutton briyani set. while it doesn’t taste anything different from the usual i have tasted. the mango lassi was not too bad. although according to P, it’s quality has gone down from the last time she tried it. the fish roe wasn’t bad. i missed eating fried fish roe. i remembered my grandma used to fry it in the filipino style. just deep fry in oil with maggi seasoning and calamansi juice as marinade.
from that restaurant, P told me she knows of a better one than that. so we walked around until we found the second restaurant. had masala tea and man. it’s not too bad. although i sort of described the taste to P as a bit of lipton milk tea with spices. hahaha! just couldn’t really appreciate the tea i guess.
after the tea, we then walk around abit. funny thing. we walked without knowing where we want to go. which is pretty fun. just walking and talking… haven’t seen her in more than 9 months as she went to italy on an exchange program. so this meeting up was pretty fun. all the catching up and all that. walked and walk till we walked past Bugis, walked past CHIJMES and ended up in orchard. pretty fun. although it is also pretty tiring.
haven’t walked that much in a long time. heh. it’s going to count towards the 0.5 – 1kg a week plan i am thinking of embarking on. or rather, i should have already embarked on. now i’m just slowly gearing down. starting from monday, i’ll probably start loading up on lots of water, fruits and veggies. the exercise part is still pretty hard to start up. will start slowly. too much too soon isn’t good.
i keep having this employee mindset. attended a meeting back at the office yesterday. first time back in office after about 2 weeks at Singpost Centre undergoing level 1 and 2 training. right after the meeting, Jean commented that i looked pretty lost.
i told her that i was. for one thing, i have never had to go to any office before without knowing what i have to do or what task i have been assigned. this is pretty much a new experience for me. being my own boss.
ultimately, i am self-employed. even though i am under a manager and belong to an agency, i am actually considered self-employed. the agency only exists to help us set and achieve certain targets. while these targets may seem to be only a way to help the agency and the company make money, it’s actually helping us to earn more income.
in a way, the agency is just a facilitator. it’s just like being a cab driver. the company would provide the taxi for rental. however, driving the cab is our own responsibility. and like the cab driver who probably belongs in a union, if we need help in terms of training and things like admin help, the company would provide support.
i’m slowly beginning to enjoy this. now all i need to do is close my first few cases.
the date today is 1st August 2008. Rin and myself have set for ourselves a challenge to lose at least 16kg by end December 2008. my initial plan is to lose about 0.5 to 1kg a week. if i succeed in shedding 1kg per week, by end December, i would have lost about 20kg.
that would bring me right into my ideal weight range. at this moment, it sounds pretty hard to do. however, i guess like everything else, once you get the momentum right, things should be pretty much flow along.
next plan would be to get something like Rin’s HP mini note. was thinking maybe a HP 2133 or even a mini tablet like Fujitsu Lifebook P1510. just for work purposes. would be easier to present a client plans i have tailor made for them and if they do not like it, i could generate a new plan on the spot for them to approve instead of having to go back, generate and print out.
will have to start scouting for places with wireless surf to do my presentations and all. some place with pretty reliable wireless access instead of the shoddy Wireless@SG i encounter in some places.
for WoW gamers, that “ding!” signifies one has leveled up. and what does that mean for this post? haha! no prizes for guessing. i’ve just completed my level 2 training so in essence, i’ve just dinged!
tomorrow marks the first official day at the office. i remember the past few days, whenever i entered the office, i kept having to sign in on the guestbook. now i probably can just waltz in. excited? of course i am. i get to see the pretty babes every day now. haha!
so what have i learnt from this level 2 training course? a lot. while i won’t share them here, suffice it to say, it probably has equipped me much better than if i have no such level 2 training. plus, i got to meet several cool people that i probably would not have gotten to know over the course of work at the office.
i have something to share for later too. i’ll blog about it later tonight.
just attended an event over at expo. it’s a company event. insightful to say the least. a lot of people. too many for me. i hate crowds. felt claustrophobic over there.
after the event ended, went over to amk hub with the team. Jean, Jack, Jennifer, Steph and myself. sort of a ’round table’ session.
while i won’t say i’m demoralised from last friday’s phone sessions, i’m a little bit apprehensive about the whole thing. others seem to make it look easy. some have almost become managers in a little more than a year. one consultant i just got to know today is a part time consultant as he’s still studying. he’s only 23 and he’s only been in the line about a year. he’s now planning to get a bmw.
he’s sort of hit the targets and all that and if i’m not mistaken, he’s on track to be manager by next year. that’s fast isn’t it? people like him makes it look easy. what happens if i fail? it’s pretty good to have role models to look up to. but what happens if i fail even after having such good role models?
it’s a mindset i have to get over.
i will be stronger. i will climb higher and i will be faster.
as it gets later and later… i get more and more random. i think Daphne can attest to it. out of the blue while she was telling me about her upcoming presentation tomorrow, i told her “remember, no matter what you do, do not fart during the presentation.”
so. Daphne, just for you… please. no farting during the presentation tomorrow. and no burping too. and do ask your friends about that awesome lake thingy.
one thing i have learnt not so long ago was to never ever trust in people who gossips about others. especially if they are your cousins. for one thing, the general consensus is that if people are so willing to gossip with you about others, they will gossip about you to others too.
another thing is that cousins, by virtue of being bound by blood, they are generally closer than friends. and thus most cousins are privy to secrets not shared to mere friends. however, because they are not your flesh and blood, they are not obliged to be loyal to you.
therefore, it is my belief that the ones who can cause the greatest harm to you are your cousins.1
i say this with conviction. although even siblings will betray you, there will come a point in time if they are human enough that they will come and help you out if and when you really need help. cousins? heh. let’s just say that i don’t think they will be there.
as for myself, i know i will be there if i said i will be there. i may not be there at THAT exact moment. but i will be there. and i say this with all honesty because when i say something, i make sure i am good for it.
i don’t have money. i don’t have anything. all i have are my words. and by God, i mean to keep them.
- actually, i think most people would think the one who can cause the greatest harm is someone you trust. as for myself, i seldom trust people.[↩]
i said on a previous post that i have a story to share. so, here’s the story.
a few years ago, i’m not as confident as i am now. i’m someone who’s very insecure and have an inferiority complex. some people may know of my other domain. that domain is currently dormant but that domain was a huge part of me at that time.
i have a lot of fears of opening up to others only to be cast aside. i never thought i have anything worth sharing with others. i never thought i was actually much of anything at all. anyway, one of my major fears was that i’d be alone. i hated that thought.
although like much of everything that’s me, it’s a huge contradiction too. while i hated being alone, i hated to get involved with people. i hated getting to know others. a huge reason is because like i mentioned, i’m afraid of being cast aside once people know me.
so these guys, they knowing my fears… sought to allay them. they got me this cushion for my birthday. they told me “hey dude. no matter what, we’re with you. not only us, but the Lord God is also with you. be at peace.”
anyway, those guys are part of the reason i’m much more confident and much more open. so there. cool story huh?
there’s a story regarding this cushion which i shall share another time.
just had a rather insightful question. i have a friend who’s also a financial consultant. was talking to him on msn when he asked me a few questions. “why did you join this line? what is the motivation that made you come into this line?”
to be honest, when i first thought of this line, i thought of the money. however, after going through the training courses, i realised one thing. the masses need education. financial consultants are NOT insurance salesmen.
even though our products are essentially insurance products, they are designed for your peace of mind. they are designed to help you to be financial secure. as someone who used to be an ambulance
medic, i have seen people being in accidents. i have seen people dying. although my experiences then was mostly on trying to give medical help to the injured, i can’t help but share in the grief when someone dies.
there was a case i attended to. the father was involved in a car accident and he passed away. although i didn’t really involve myself with the family affairs or anything, i did overhear one thing. the father was the sole breadwinner. his wife was a chinese national and a housewife who doesn’t know how to speak english. they had a 3 year old daughter. all i could think of was, how were they going to survive?
i don’t know what happened to them after they left the hospital. i don’t even know if the father had insurance coverage. what i do know however is that if the father had insurance, they could at least have some relief even if it’s only for a while.
someone told me when i called her that she doesn’t need insurance now. that’s true. but what happens if and when she needs it? it’s too late isn’t it? but that’s how we are i guess. we always think that things won’t happen to us. but what happens if one day, something does happen? are we prepared? are we covered?
i want to be able to help people. i’ve always wanted to be a doctor. failing that, i thought being in the paramedical line would be good enough. now? if i can help someone through the planning of his or her finances and through proper education of how and what an insurance product can do to help them, i think it’s good enough.
once again experiencing doubts and fears over this path that i have chosen. i knew it’s not an easy job. i didn’t exactly ask for a bed of roses. i knew that this job would be hard, especially at the beginning. however, i seriously had no idea how hard it was.
it wasn’t until i had to make the phone calls. heh. that was when i thought that maybe i should quit. but then again, that’s exactly what i cannot do. i shall overcome this. i will persevere. i will not let my mum have the satisfaction of saying “see? i told you so.”
had this session called ‘Telephone Clinic’ today. in short, we’re supposed to call our contacts and then make a minimum of 10 appointment before the end of the session. if we could not get 10 appointments, we are to try and try until we have 10.
so i had to scrounge up my contact list and from there, identify 30 people to call. from this 30, hopefully, i can get a minimum of 10 appointments. seriously speaking? it wasn’t fun at all. i’m not good at calling up friends to meet. i’m even lousier at trying to sell my friends things.
as it was, i think i probably just lost myself several ‘friends‘. some of them were already wary when i called. it’s been a few months since i’ve contact them since i’ve left my previous workplace and my school. so when i contacted them, naturally, some of them felt there was something wrong. the minute i said i’m currently working for Prudential Assurance (Singapore), a few hanged up.
those who didn’t hang up on me told me they didn’t need a policy. but in all honesty, i wasn’t selling any policy. all i wanted was just to schedule an appointment. it doesn’t even have to be about my financial consulting services. but the minute i said i was a financial consultant, everything broke.
oh wells. seriously i feel damn bad about it. i’ve felt shitty before. i’ve felt like i’m not worth anything. but today takes the cake. drained. totally drained. i never want to do telemarketing. will never do it again. i’ll take road shows any time. i think.
this is a repost. turned out, wanting something doesn’t make it real. and yes. she is a dream girl. she really is. she’s a living, breathing, flesh and blood dream girl.
cinnamon. cinnamon cookies, cinnamon doughnuts… cinnamon powder sprinkled on coffee or hot cocoa…
i love cinnamon.
and i am a sucker for girls who bakes cinnamon stuffs. they say the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. for me, just baking me cinnamon cookies is a sure way to my heart. oh well… maybe not just cinnamon cookies.
the girl in question must first and foremost be a believer. if she’s not a believer, she’s out. she must love God more than she loves me. because i think when it comes down to it, i would probably love God more than i love her. because surely, my God is a jealous God. if i place anyone or anything on a pedestal that’s higher than Him, my God will take it away from me. and as i’ve placed my life in His hands, so shall it be.
she must also be a music lover. she doesn’t need to know how to play instruments or even sing but she must love music. i love music. it’s pretty cool to be able to love the same kind of music as your partner. or to even make music together.
she needs to be able to converse with me. i’m not really someone who can talk well with people. i tend to hide behind the screen. so it’s usually only people i am comfortable enough with that i’ll speak to. and it’s pretty common for me to just sit at a corner and be quiet. so if the girl is able to draw me out of my shell and be able to hold intelligent conversations with me… you got me, girl.
apart from the above… i recently decided that the girl must also like Apple products. okay. even if she’s not into Apple products, she must at least tolerate them. i mean, as some of my friends would say, i’m nuts about Apple. and it’s funny considering i don’t have a macbook other than the one i bought for my brother.
there. that’s all i can say. guess what? i kind of found a girl who fits all. but she’s spoken for. and there’s another girl who’s everything except the apple part. but then, she has told me time and time again she’s not interested.
heh. it’s funny how the girls who fits my criteria are around me but i just can’t get them. it’s frustrating to say the least. and i’m kind of resigned to it. i’m like the boy looking in the window of a house. all i can do is look in and see what the others have and be envious. i dream of having what they have… but that’s about all i can do.
now, i wonder when am i dreaming? am i dreaming now as i am writing this? or will i be dreaming tomorrow when i am talking to her? heh.
dreams are just that. dreams. i’m awake now. and it’s pretty tough to wake up after such a dream. you know. you just want to get back to bed and all that… but somehow, try as you want, you’ll never be able to grab that dream back.
ah well. it was good while it lasted. seriously.
it’s good. seriously. what Val Kilmer and George Cloony threw away, Christian Bale brought back. he is the dark knight. and the joker? Jack Nicholson was good. But the late Heath Ledger is better.
i’m planning to watch this again. anyone wanna watch it with me?
i spent the early part of the morning taking exams. 2 papers which i passed. thank God. it’d be a bummer to have failed an exam on your birthday. anyway, after that, i went straight home. was tired. spent the night before playing MHF2 and studying my notes.
went home and slept from 12noon till 3pm. then played MHF2 till mum came home, cut the cake, ate dinner and slept at 10pm.
exciting huh? anyway, i didn’t really do much. not much to do. i don’t have any special someone to celebrate my birthday with anyway. also, i think saturday’s outing at Timbre was celebration enough. i’ve reached the point now where i don’t really want to celebrate my birthday but you know what, it’d be nice to have people wishing you a happy birthday on that day.
only a handful did. or maybe only a handful did remember? but the funny thing about this is of the people who actually wished me, most of them are people i never talked to for some time? it’s weird how they are the ones who wished me whereas the rest didn’t.
disappointed? of course not. no one owes me anything. can’t really be bothered with that. at least i had a good rest last night. i’ll be buying myself an iPhone when it comes out as a belated birthday present for myself. oh and if anyone out there is reading this… a girlfriend would be nice too!
i’m feeling good! and yes. this day is mine.
and as a birthday resolution, i’m giving myself till december to lose weight and reach my ideal weight range. heh. need to look good to attract the ladies to buy policies from me yah?
was set a challenge by Jean. hit S$30,000 API in a month. heh. interesting challenge. i wonder as to where should i start.
i’ve been using my own domains now for at least the past 3 years. and whenever those domains go down, i have a ‘backup’ blog to go to. that backup blog is a wordpress blog. anyway, just this morning i received a spam alert from that blog and when i checked it out, i found some links from my blogroll.
now, i usually don’t link to people unless i know them or have commented on their blog or have them commented on my blog. so you can imagine since that blog of mine is just a ‘backup’ blog, i’m actually kind of surprised to have some sort of links in there.
so i looked through the blogroll and found that one particular person is no longer at wordpress. she has moved to spaces@live. when i decided on a whim to follow the link, i found that she has moved yet again. now to her own domain. and i decided to follow yet again. guess what? next i found that she’s moved (physically this time) from the Philippines to Singapore.
hello you if you read my comment on your blog and came here. nice to read your blog again.
just got back from Timbre @ The Art House. nice place. ambiance is not bad as well. but then again, as i’ve only been to Brewerkz and Crazy Elephant before, i can’t really say much.
i did enjoy myself though. but funnily enough, instead of actually interacting much with the others, i spent a third of the time at Timbre playing Monster Hunter Freedom 2 with Rin and Shiz. good times i tell you. i died too many times to count but it was fun nevertheless.
i want to go back to Timbre again soon. anyone wanna come?
seriously. ignorance is bliss. it’s not the first time i have blogged about it. i regret knowing too much things. knowledge is power but too much information is a killer.
not going to talk about anything in this post. ignorance is bliss and i will not want to spoil it for the rest.
when you are after a girl and she says she doesn’t have feelings for you, what do you do? i’m sure that a lot of guys would try harder. however, here’s the kicker. how does one try harder?
for myself, i have no answer. i haven’t really gone after girls before. yes i have been interested in people and i have told them about it before. but that’s about the extent of what i’ve done. to be honest, i don’t know what else to do. i tell the girl i’m interested. if she isn’t interested at all, what can i do? nothing.
if anyone says to try harder or to put in more effort, here’s my question to them. are you actually putting in more effort? or are you actually just making more noise? see, here’s how i see it. if a girl isn’t interested in a guy, nothing the guy do will actually attract her. all he’d be doing is making louder and louder noises in an effort to attract her attention.
when a guy and a girl has been friends for more than a year, the likelihood of them getting together romantically is rather slim. why spoil the friendship with talks of romance?
it’s the third day of my training and so far, nothing has gone terribly wrong. oh, there’s some interesting curveballs but nothing that i didn’t manage to settle. one of the stuffs yesterday involved my diploma.
the office admin needed a copy of my diploma but all i had submitted was my transcript. turned out that wasn’t enough. either i produce my diploma or i needed to submit a copy of my ‘O’ level certificate instead.
what i did was cabbed down to school and took my diploma and then from school, cabbed down to the office. all told, i spent about S$50 on the cab fare. not good since i haven’t actually even started to earn any income from this job.
anyway, there’s this girl in the office who looks pretty nice. hehe. will be looking forward to working in the office regularly.
reached Singpost Centre at 8am this morning. supposed to be meeting someone by the name of Shereen. this Shereen was supposed to be my contact for the morning since Jean wasn’t in Singapore. anyway, all arrangements was that i was to meet the BDM at 8.45am before heading for my training at 9am.
since i was early, i thought things would be pretty much smooth going. Stephanie arrived at 8.40am and we both waited at Coffee & Toast where we were both supposed to meet another person named Melvin. what happened however was that until 8.50am, there were still no sign of either Shereen or Melvin. luckily for me, Steph knew roughly which floor the training would be held so we made our way there.
then came the first bad news of the day. we both (Stephanie and myself) needed a temporary agent’s pass. which we didn’t have. heck! we didn’t even know we were supposed to get that. next, we were told that we didn’t have that since we haven’t met the BDM. so we looked for the BDM. ooops! there’s the second bad news. before we could meet the BDM, we were actually supposed to already have had our references checked out and all that. since for me, i still had the application form,1 i obviously haven’t had my references checked out. the BDM then told me and Steph that since we were already there and that our manager2 isn’t around, he’d be making us an exception to the rule and we could attend the training.
then came more bad news. firstly, my referees hadn’t received their emails.3 if they hadn’t received the emails, how were the references supposed to be checked?! secondly, i didn’t have any other contacts apart from Melvin and Shereen but somehow or other, Stephanie and myself couldn’t get a hold of them.
turned out that the two of them were already back at Fuji Xerox Tower trying to help us get all the stuffs prepared. thanks Melvin and Shereen. sorry for bugging the two of you as well.
i hope tomorrow would go on more smoothly. on the up side, HCL Singapore called me up again asking me if i am available. it seems they want to hire me. and i received a resume request from AIA. heh. i told HCL Singapore to check back with me again in a month’s time as i needed at least a month’s notice and they asked if i will join them as soon as the month ends. hmmmm. told them i need to check what they are offering. heh.
that about concludes my day. pretty long day so far. got home only around 7.30pm. oh well. need to have an early night tonight. waking up early again tomorrow. oh and training’s pretty interesting. not allowed to say more. confidential stuffs. but it’s interesting. and a little bit frightening. ask me again some other time and i may share the frightening stuffs.
decided to take up the basic package. even though it’s only $2000 and there’s a quota involved, as long as i meet the quota, it’s a guaranteed $2000. there may be a small commission although i’m not going to be relying on it much.
if i don’t meet the quota, i’m not getting a single cent. which is still okay as long as i meet the previous month’s quota. however, if i don’t meet the quota for 3 consecutive months, i’ll be moved to a pure commission based channel. which isn’t necessarily a bad thing if i managed to meet the quota at least once.
moreover, being in a basic package channel, all i really need to do is just hit the quota. that’s all. hit quota and get $2000. exceed the quota, get more than $2000. at the moment, that’s all i am aiming at since i’m still not that confident.
anyway, dress code on monday is office wear. drats. the dreaded long sleeves, tie, trousers and leather shoes. ugh.
i have a feeling working with Jean is going to be a real interesting experience. i have not much comment so far as i haven’t really started working with her. however, i have a feeling she’s the sort of person who will hand someone a task today yet she’d expect it done yesterday.
it’s not really that bad actually. there’s this challenge and all… i’m just worried i may not live up to that expectation. i’m a pretty slack person and procrastination is usually the winner in my battles with my inner self.
ho hum. now i just need to rush up all the stuffs i’m supposed to hand in to her later. copies of my M5 and M9 result slips, copies of my IC and also my diploma transcript and 3 passport sized photos.
i need to get off my butt and do some serious studying. after looking at how the Jem and Rin’s been doing their webdesigns… i can’t help but look at the sad state of my skills.
too much time and not using it properly did me some serious harm. i forgot alot of basic stuffs i should know. HTML/CSS/PHP/ASP… if i want to be able to start freelancing, i need to buck up. been doing some reflections lately and i learnt some hard truths about myself.
i like to pick up new stuffs. but then i don’t expand on them. i don’t even try to keep up or revise those stuffs i know. for instance, i studied networking and cabling. however, i don’t think i remember much of those stuffs. i had gotten an A for my C programming. kind of useless now that i think about it since i sort of forgot how to code in C.
so in the next 3 months, time permitting, i will work on PHP. i need to make sure i grasp the basics this time. if there’s no strong foundation, when the rain comes, the house will come crumbling. i will probably close down this blog soon. closing it for renovation. but that’s still a ways to go. need to find out my new schedule with JCO since i’ve passed my CMFAS M5 and M9 exams.
met up with my manager earlier this evening at J8 to get my mock exam questions. after that, met up with Rin and Cass. talked about some stuffs and well… “there’s no such thing as try”.
i’m going to set a goal for myself. in three months, i want to be able to close at least 5 cases. and then after that, we shall see. i have plans to revamp my site. although to be honest, i have been thinking about revamping my site for a very very long time.
i’m seriously wondering something. am i really such an open book? i know some times, it’s my own fault. i mean, i go around letting people know i love the iPhone and that i am getting. that’s one thing. but… some other things are just…
i don’t know. is it good? or is it bad? because for the life of me… if i am really such an open book… then i need to learn to close up more. either that or i had better start getting better at reading other people.
i love going down to Ice³. it’s really one of the most awesome places for ice cream. best thing about going there is i usually go there with the guys. i don’t know. i miss hanging out with them. but when i do hang out with them, i feel a little bit out of place.
anyway, i enjoyed myself today. kind of. did encounter a little bit of a downer though. my brother’s left lung was 30% collapsed earlier today. they had to re-insert an air tubing to try and re-inflate the lung. heh. here’s to wishing him well.
just got home from Suntec. took my CMFAS M5 paper earlier this afternoon and got back my results right after i’ve finished. result? passed!
so that’s one module down and another module to go. the next module will be CMFAS M9 and the paper will be held next friday. interestingly, i’ve just gotten an email reply from Accenture. i’ve actually applied for one of their Graduate Trainee Opportunities almost 3 weeks ago.
this Graduate Trainee Opportunities actually involves a 3 month training program in software programming and IT. successful applicants will be given minimum wages and even a bonus on completion of the program. moreover, applicants may even be offered a position as programmer with Accenture.
heh. things seemed to be looking up.
got woken up by my mum’s screams. turned out she saw a cockroach in the kitchen. so i was up at 6am killing ‘roaches. oh and it wasn’t one. it was 2 at first. then became 3. after i killed the first 3, my mum said she’s running back into the room.
which was just as well. ’cause after she went back into the room, i saw another 2 more cockroaches crawling around. heh. wonder where those cockroaches came from. later, after disposing of those 5 cockroaches in to the trash, i saw another cockroach lurking inside the lid of the trash chute.
out came my trusty spray only to find out i ran out of ammos. ugh. time for melee weapons then. took up a rolled newspaper and whacked the guts out of the cockroach. final tally? me 6, roaches 0.
now it’s time to go back to bed. having my CMFAS M5 paper later at 12.30pm in Suntec.
guess what? i probably will be able to make a living in marketing and sales. just read an article and boy… did that article blew my mind.
Desalinated seawater from Hawaii, meanwhile, is being sold as “concentrated water” — at $33.50 for a two-ounce bottle. Like any concentrated beverage, it is supposed to be diluted before drinking, except that in this case, that means adding water to . . . water.
if people are buying designer water, they will buy anything!
suddenly, i feel even more confident about things. i’m sure if i can learn to sell water, i will be able to sell policies even better.
if i were to head to the UK, is there anything in Singapore to hold me back? honestly, that’s something i want to know. a friend put to me this question:
“have you thought? if you could make it as a financial consultant, will you still go UK?”
i don’t know. i mean, let’s put things this way. if i could make it here as a financial consultant, i can go anywhere. i can go out to see the world! but would i leave Singapore? it depends on what’s in Singapore to hold me back.
if there’s nothing in Singapore for me, then there really isn’t any reason for me to stay here. even if i make it here as a financial consultant, what’s to stop me from being one overseas?
if it’s friends we’re talking about… as someone put it to me yesterday, being a financial consultant will make me lose all my friends. heh. a load of bullshit for sure. but to be honest, the friends i make are more of online pals.
the few people i actually hang out with and actually have meaningful conversations with are also online. so it’s not really a big problem were i to uproot myself and migrate overseas. it’ll be a good opportunity to make new friends in place of the ones i supposedly lost when i became a financial consultant.
all in all, i have no idea what is holding me back. except probably the idea of getting a girlfriend here. although to be fair, i kind of gave up thinking about getting into a relationship. i don’t seem to be one who can handle breakups or whatnots. better to just concentrate on getting my iPhone first. hee!
i was asking a friend1 if she’s working yet. she replied that she’s not working yet. now, i remembered she mentioned being offered a job in the financial consulting field so i kinda asked if she’s taking it up. she said “haha! of course not”.
since i myself am now in this field, i sort of asked why not. she replied “i don’t want to lose all my friends.”
it’s rather insulting isn’t it? honestly, if you think being in this line will make you lose your friends… then they weren’t friends to begin with. so in that case, i don’t know what to make of us. are we friends? i think not. since she felt that this job will make one lose all their friends, i think i’ve just lost her. and since i have just stated that if one loses their friends just because one is in this line, then they weren’t friends in the first place. so there. that’s one friend i won’t miss.
seriously, how shallow can one be? and then this person tried to justify things by saying
“but it doesn’t suit me anyway. i can’t do sales. i think it takes a lot to be the top for this kind of job. they really work their ass off or they’re just awesome.”
it doesn’t matter what job you are doing. if you’re not giving your all, you’re mediocre. it’s not about sales. it’s not about being awesome. it’s about putting effort. if you are content to be getting minimum wage for the least amount of job, well done.
- i use that term loosely here[↩]
it’s official. kind of. my mum and my aunt wants me to head over there. in fact, my aunt was saying even if i don’t want to send my resume or study there at first, i could head over as a tourist. just to sight see and to think about things.
suddenly, what i have often talked about seemed to be coming true. some of you may have known for a fact that i always have wanted to be a doctor. and when i didn’t pass my ‘A’ levels and dropped out of Pre-University, i seemed to have thrown that dream away.
when i got into the SCDF during my NS, i talked about signing on as a paramedic here in sunny singapore. i even talked about after working as a paramedic in singapore, i would eventually migrate to either Australia, Canada or even the United Kingdoms to try to work as an EMT.
of course events of the past few months and years have shown me that all those dreams are kind of impossible. for one thing, working in singapore as a paramedic isn’t exactly what the stuffs of my dreams. it’s not exciting enough. there’s only so much one can do.
now however, things seem to be opening up. i mean come on! i get to go to the UK and to choose whether or not to work or study there. who knows? i could apply for a paramedical job or something similar.
still, it’s weird. why now? why when i thought i’m going to try out this financial consultant thing did this UK offer came up? anyway, i told my parents that i want to give JCO a shot. no harm in trying. if i can make it here, good for me. even if i do eventually decide to head to the UK, my experience in JCO should help me somewhat.
attended the seminar and of all the things that stays in my mind even after it has ended was this quote by a speaker named Noelle.
Success is by choice. Not by chance.
i can’t help but agree more with her. one of the things that actually draws me to this career path is that unlike a ‘normal’ salaried employee, the harder i work will actually translate into more money.
i have worked in a company. it’s not like i have never worked before. although it’s been only a few months, what i can say is i’m pretty bored of working in a company. basically, no matter how hard you work, you don’t get paid more. no matter how good you are or how much money you saved the company, the most the company can do for you is give you a raise as a token of their appreciation or maybe a promotion. but that’s about all. a friend of mine worked for the company for 3 years and he told me he only got a S$100 increment a year.
“It’s a problem of motivation, all right? Now if I work my ass off and Initech ships a few extra units, I don’t see another dime; so where’s the motivation? And here’s something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now.”
- Peter Gibbons, Office Space
was supposed to head down to Fullerton Hotel this afternoon for a seminar. what happened was i got lost. again. and i learnt something new as well. i learnt that distances shown on MRT maps are not drawn to scale.
i took the train down to Raffles Place. according to the map, all i had to do was exit from exit H. after i came out from exit H, i just followed the general direction i saw on the map. never did realised that after coming out from that exit, i had to turn to my right, not walk straight.
so i walked on and on and on… guess where i ended up at? i ended up at The Esplanade.
the best part was, at first, i didn’t even realised i was lost. all i thought was that i just need to keep heading straight. i even thought i had enough time because on thursday, i distinctively recall Jean telling me the seminar starts at 1.30pm. as it was only 12.30pm, i thought i still have the time to walk.
luckily i texted Jean at 12.45pm to confirm the time. thank God. she told me it’s at 1pm. hurriedly took a cab down. it was only after i took the cab that i then realised i was on the opposite direction. that was when i found out i was lost.
hee~ but there’s something good that came out of it. i now know how to walk to The Fullerton from Raffles Place. yay me!
my blog is my personal time machine. i get to travel back to the past and see things with a clearer view. i also get to re-live the past. sort of.
anyway, it’s late. i have loads of stuffs on my mind. i just don’t know where to start. i want to pen those thoughts down. i want to put it into words. just don’t know how to start picking through the tangles of my thoughts.
i used to stay awake through the night drinking coke. a few months back however, i switched to tonic water. oh i still do drink coke once in a while. it still gets me high. but moderation is probably the buzzword i am using now for coke.
i get too irritable after the coke high and that’s just not good socially.
the more i think about it, the more i am convinced that this is where i should be. yes. i am worried about what if i don’t close any deals. what if i failed the exams. what if i don’t manage to break even in 6 months. but if all i do is worry, i’ll never grow.
there is no shortcut to anything. the path to success lies with the will to grow. here i am, not even a fully licensed or trained financial consultant. heck. i don’t think i’m considered as one yet anyway. but already i am thinking of failure. i’ll never be able to grow in this case.
it’s good to be afraid though. afraid of failing but as long as i am able to reach out a step at a time and push on, i will get there. one doesn’t fail by failing. one fails by not standing up when he falls. if one isn’t afraid of failing, one gets too overconfident and will fall.
okay. that’s enough for the pep-talk i think. whew.
just spoke to my dad. told him about my decision to join prudential. he wasn’t really encouraging. nor did he put me down. i don’t know. he said that it’s okay if i want to try it. but i had better not set my hopes too high and that it would be better if i think of it as a side line.
he said that the economy is bad right now and that a lot of people would be put off by financial consultants and that it’s going to be hard to sustain a steady income. he also said that since there’ll be no CPF, i’ll have to really save up.
well, all the more i want to prove to my parents. i can’t back down with such a challenge placed in front of me. i still have dreams of playing golf every wednesday! hahaha! anyway, since everyone is shying away from financial consultants and all that, isn’t it the best time to be one? yes the economy is bad. but if you care enough for others to really want to help them to plan their finances, i believe one can do it.
passion is key. i remember someone telling me that my attitude in things will determine my altitude. i will make it.
so Rin and Wendy’s getting hitched today!
Congrats yo!
how does one define blessed? came across someone’s blog and in it, she mentioned how she wished she’s so blessed like her friends. what i’d like to tell her is that she should count her blessings first before counting other people’s blessings.
for instance, even though she wrote how her dad had gotten a stroke a few years back, her dad’s still with her. i knew of someone who’s dad had cancer and passed away, leaving him and his mum. he’s an only child. you have your brother. you have a whole family.
just the same, i too am still learning how to count my blessings. i wake up each morning and i think about how i’m jobless. and then i remember that even though i’m in my mid 20s, my parents are still willing to support me as long as i need. seriously. i’m not ashamed to mention it. what’s there to be ashamed about? at least i know my parents do love me. even though of course they may not understand certain things, i know i can count on them.
even now that i’m still “jobless”, guess what? i’m using this time to actually spend quality time with my brothers. sort of. we kind of just play games on our home network. DotA and Warhammer 40k and even Call of Duty 4.
every single thing happens for a reason. and for every bad thing, if we look around a little bit, we’ll see that it’s all actually a blessing in disguise. the only problem is that we really need to look hard. it’s all too easy to get bogged down by our problems.
the bad thing about being a financial consultant i guess would be the initial startup. i mean, if we don’t close a deal, we don’t get paid. we don’t have CPF too. i was told that there’ll be 2 different channels for our salary.
it’s only for the first year though. first, there’s a fixed package. however, there’s a catch. you need to hit a quota before you get paid. so if you’re even a deal short of the quota, that’s it. no money for that month. and if you hit above and beyond the quota, you’ll be paid the basic and whatever amount you have gone over. however, if i’m not mistaken, you don’t get the passive income from a fixed package.
the second one is a purely commission based scheme. for this one, there’s no minimum quota. basically, for this scheme, how much you earn is how much you have put in. so if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. the difference with this scheme and the fixed package is that since there isn’t a quota to meet, as long as you close a deal or two, you’re good to go. the only problem is that since your pay is entirely commission based, closing a deal or two is not enough.
the fixed package has a package that says for every 2 cases per month, you get $2k. so that means even if i close only 2 deals a month, i still get $2k. for the commission based scheme, of course this isn’t possible. but at least if i only closed 1 deal, i still get my commission unlike the fixed package where i won’t.
so. where do i start? how do i go about doing it? of course getting the fixed package would be ideal since i’m not that confident i can close enough deals. however, if i don’t close any deals at all… no pay. catch-22 problem?
urgh. okay. i don’t care what goes on next. whether or not i actually move to london or i stay and do this job… i’m just going to go with the flow. i knew when i resigned 3 months ago that things were going to change.
i had wanted opportunities and now that it has presented itself, i’m going to have to trust it and just take the plunge.
after i told my mum i’m taking up the financial consultant, she decided to call my aunt in london. she’s planning to get me to take up some sort of study programme in london. heh.
i don’t mind. but the thing is, i’ve been asking my mum that for some time now and she said to wait and see. now just cause i decided to take up financial consulting, she wants me to go?
seriously getting a bit pissed.
i don’t get my mum. seriously. i know she means well but still…
i have finally gotten a job. somewhat. it’s a financial consultant position. i mean, heck. it’s probably better than what i’m doing right now which is nothing. i understand it’s not an easy job. i understand fully that out of so many successful financial consultants, there are many more who tried and failed.
at least i’m trying to find a job instead of just staying at home and slacking away. which is exactly what she sees me doing for the past 3 months. heh. although it’s strictly not true. yes. i do stay at home and play games, etc. but i have been sending out resumes, attending interviews and also been trying to update myself.
seriously. i always said that it doesn’t matter if one tries hard. as long as one isn’t given the chance or opportunity, shit happens.
anyway, heck it. at least if i were to fail, i would know it’s my own fault this time. at the same time, i will have to start building up my web design portfolio. since i’m starting on this financial consultant thing and it’s going to be sort of a freelance job in a sense, might as well improve my web designs and market it too.
heading down for two interviews later. one’s at 12noon and the other’s at 2pm. both are for financial consultant positions. i’m actually rather apprehensive about both interviews. for one thing, this financial consultant thing is going to be a totally whole new field for me.
moreover, i myself need a financial consultant. i don’t know if i have what it takes to be one. although to be fair, if i don’t give this a chance, i’ll never know. oh wells. wish me luck.
i miss having someone to talk to. i miss real conversations. people i talk to nowadays just… i don’t know. it bores me. meaningless conversations just isn’t my type. i mean, how far can you go talking to someone about school, about this guy or that girl or about anything else?
after my test last night, i went to suntec to chill. wasn’t alone obviously. called up someone to accompany me as i was feeling a little bit down because of the test. anyway, we chatted and walked around… laughed at silly stuffs1. but still… i find that i want deeper conversations.
the few people i could talk deeply too aren’t around. one’s my ex. so strike her off the list. one’s someone i used to be interested in. okay i admit, i still am interested in her. kind of. just that we’ve kind of drifted off. not just her though. the whole bunch of guys we hang out with. i’ve drifted away from them. it’s always the case with me. one minute i’d be blogging about how i missed them, how cool they are, and another minute, due to some perceived slight, i’d rant about them. sorry guys. but yes. i do miss you dudes now. meh.
the third person i could talk with is in italy now. she’s there for a semester. some exchange program thing. anyway, she’ll be back by 12th july. can’t wait. told her about the bottle of absinthe i have and she said she’ll look around for a slotted spoon for me.
thing is. i miss those people but i don’t know how to let them know. probably if they were to read this blog they’d know but i’d prefer not to tell them. how do you tell someone you miss her? and how do you react if the person doesn’t feel the same?
i’d rather just keep it all to myself. i mean, the outcome’s the same anyway. if i don’t tell them, nothing happens. if i tell them and they laugh… i’m better off not telling them. right?
- about me thinking Raffles Place and Raffles City were at the same area…[↩]
just watched Cloverfield. meh… one thing that was on my mind in the early part of the show was that i don’t think i’d want to have a friend like Hudson. or if i do have a friend like him, i don’t wanna tell him things. ever.
i have a new favourite movie! it’s called The Boondock Saints. it’s good. really.
in nomine patris, et filii, et spiritus sancti1
- in the Name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit[↩]
heh. one thing about being jobless… it’s actually boring. i mean, i have been sending out resumes after resumes… at least 5 a day. haven’t been getting much offers though. although maybe it’s because i have set my expectations too high?
or maybe, it’s just my diploma. i hold a diploma in electrical engineering but my major is in data and networking. i have no experience in power management or such stuffs and that’s why i try not to apply for electrical positions.
however, when i apply for network support positions, i don’t seem to get any replies. not that i’m regretting the path i took but on hindsight, i really should have gone for nursing or for IT. at least i have a passion for medical and IT stuffs.
oh well. there’s a reason for everything and everything will happen in due time. in the meantime, i’m stuck at home sending resumes and playing DotA with my brothers. don’t want to go out as i’m kinda broke. don’t intend to use up whatever cash i have in case i need them for a rainy day.
ever been struck by a bamboo pole? well… i did. sort of. mum was trying to pull a blanket off the bamboo pole but she didn’t want to bring the pole down from the ceiling first. what happened was that when she pulled the blanket, the pole came down anyway.
so the pole kinda hit my shoulders and damn. it hurts. neck and shoulder’s hurting like hell now. dull throbbing ache that just wouldn’t go away no matter how much medicated oil i apply. tried taking painkillers but it doesn’t seem to even dull the pain.
can’t sleep. pain’s driving me insane. in a weird way. luckily it was just the pole dropping down. what could have happened may be worse. i was cutting up a fish for dinner when the incident happened. luckily the knife fell into the sink.
heh. if the pain doesn’t subside by tomorrow when i wake up… i may have to see a doctor. that is, if i do wake up tomorrow. the way the pain is now, i feel like just taking a whole bottle of pills just to go to sleep. meh.
another reason why i disliked trains. smelly bodies. people who smell like they wash their clothes in days-old urine and who hangs said clothes to dry in an airtight room.
heh. my first reason was that trains are just so crowded at times that you actually get someone’s hairy armpit shoved at your face. not that i had gotten my face shoved into someone else’s hairy armpit before but well… i have seen a girl whom i thought was cute… until she raised her arm to hold on to an overhead handhold and you see bushy armpits.
ewww.
and she was directly in front of me and her bushy armpit was just a few inches away from me.
weird things happen to me on trains.
now i kind of regret not learning how to drive.
a few of the job positions i am interested in applying for has a requirement that the applicant possess a valid class 3 driving license.
fuck.
the house seems so much quieter now that my aunt and my cousin has gone back to the philippines. and it’s not necessarily a good thing. oh yes. glad that i’ve got my room back once again. but with them gone, the house has kind of gotten colder.
before their arrival, we didn’t exactly notice it but my brothers and i don’t really interact much during the day. Melvin has classes. Alistair too. Michael’s mostly just in the room with his computer. i’d be in my room either on the computer as well or on my guitar.
then just before dinner, we’ll all come out to help prepare dinner and stuffs and then back into the rooms. but when my aunt and my cousin arrived, we had to interact and all. made things much more interesting. oh well.
back to routine i suppose. and back to job hunting.
i may not be at the lowest point yet. however, even if i am, i will not despair. or at least i will try not to despair. i’ve heard it said that when you’re at the bottom, there’s no where else to go but up.
Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other? – God, Evan Almighty
heading now to NUS CC later for my interview. to be honest, i’m still not prepared. i’m not prepared to go for the interview only to be rejected. seriously. i don’t handle rejections well. meh. that’s probably why i tend to run away things. i know that rejections are part and parcel of life. but if you can spend life without having to deal with it, why wouldn’t you?
it’s not healthy i know. that’s why i am still going down later. heh. for all the faux bravado i exhibit, i’m actually really really afraid of rejections.
it’s just starting to sink in. i spent 2 whole weeks waiting for the results of my 2nd interview only to be disappointed. and guess what? my aunt and my cousin missed their flight. we misread the ticket. the ticket says May 27th, 12.45am. my mum and my aunt were too focused on the date they they forgot about the time.
so guess what? we arrived at the airport at 10pm only to realise that they should actually have checked in LAST NIGHT instead as their flight was for this morning.
they incurred a no show penalty of S$70 each and they’d need to rebook their flight. rebooking fees are at S$50 each. that’s like a fucking whole S$240 wasted because we misread the time. heh. the way things have been going… this week is going to be pretty fucked up. let me recap my week so far.
monday, i found out that my job application was unsuccessful. tuesday, my aunt and my cousin missed their flight. this thursday i’m having an interview. i seriously am starting to think it’s going to be a flop as well.
heh. i think i could write a song on my life.
“i have no money, no car and no girlfriend” will be the tag line.
or i could write a book. “the man without a life”
but probably the reviews would trash those. given that i’ve suddenly developed a very low sense of self esteem right about now… it’s a miracle i can still wake up to face the morning. i couldn’t sleep last night. just tossed and turned about it bed. kept wondering where it all went wrong. heh. my cousin and my aunt is leaving tonight. they’re heading back to the Philippines.
going to miss my cousin. heh. all those times we spent playing magic and the past few hours playing R6V2 multiplayer… heh. i’m going back to sleep. i can’t face the rest of the day feeling so down.
after that piece of disappointing email, i frantically sent out applications after applications. i should never have counted my eggs before they hatched and i should never have left them all in one basket. but as they say, hindsight is always 20/20.
so now that that door has closed, i’m kind of wondering where else to go.
thankfully, one of the applications netted me an almost immediate reply. although i seriously don’t have much confidence anymore. bah. i’m not depressed though. disappointed maybe. but depressed? let’s just say i kind of expected it after two weeks of no reply. just wished they could have let me know sooner. wouldn’t have spent the last week looking forward to the results.
ho hum. i’m honestly feeling very much alone now though. there’s no one i could like talk to or something. i mean, maybe there’s a few people i think i could call… but to be frank? i’d rather not. i don’t feel comfortable with people lately.
so… my application was unsuccessful. even though i have passed the tests and have successfully gone through the first interview, it seemed that i failed my second interview. this… sucks.
honestly. i mean for goodness’ sake. it’s been almost 6 weeks. i waited 6 weeks only to be told my application was unsuccessful. 6 weeks, 1 test and 2 interviews. oh wells. need to make sure my other applications work out…
this is so fucking cool!
searching the wayback machine, i realised i’ve had my very own domain since 2003. although a year later, the domain expired because i forgot to pay and someone took it and made it into some sort of holding page. here’s a snapshot of my very first blog on that domain.
my second domain was gotten right after i lost my first one. here’s snapshot of my second blog on that new domain. for what’s its worth, i still have my second domain although i’m now permanently hosted on my third domain. currently, the second domain is a mirror of this site’s main.
i do have plans for the second domain although i have yet to finalize plans for it.
man. i don’t know but it feels good to reminisce about the past with good friends. haha! i can’t believe me and Rin were just talking and showing each other our old domains and old sites. it’s like comparing your baby photographs or talking about your toys when you were young. well. since we are geeks, we talk about our websites instead. haha!
was just looking through my old pictures, site designs and all that when i found a banner i did for a friend’s music studio. what amazes me is that the banner was done on 5th January 1996. it’s like… dude! that banner is 12 years old!
i’ve been designing websites since 1996? seriously… and yet. i don’t think i’ve improved a single bit. i haven’t actually done up a layout since 2006. i think? i forgot when was the last time i actually coded a web site. i mean, oh sure. i’d tinker around with my blog templates once in a while… but it’s not the same as actually handcoding your own site.
i still remember some years back when i asked Jem how he designed his site. he told me he used notepad. boy was i stunned. from then on, i tried to emulate what he does. using notepad and all. heh. but after awhile, i guess i kind of gotten lazy.
heh. time flies.
was on the train home earlier from Choa Chu Kang. anyway, saw 3 chinese bimbos. the MRT has this feature where just before the door closes, there’ll be this beeping sound and an announcement telling people to “please stand clear. doors are closing.” anyway, this 3 bimbos? they were chit-chatting and slowly making their way up the escalator when the announcement came on. instead of rushing to the door like the others, these 3 bimbos just cooly walked on. it was only when the doors were actually closing that they made a mad dash for it.
only one got through. hah! and they screamed. and poor me? i was standing near the door. when that bimbo that got in screamed, she was literally screaming into my ear. the other 2 looked dumbfounded and stood there, not knowing what to do. i seriously had to control myself from bursting out with laughter.
at the next stop… guess what? an indian lady tried the same thing. she almost didn’t make it. i mean seriously come on people. this is the MRT. it’s not like the trains in some backwater country where the next train will arrive only next year. why risk your pathetic lives trying to rush for the door? or if you have to rush, freaking rush when you hear the announcement. not when you see the doors closing. fuckers.
2 stops later, i saw a pregnant woman get on the train. by now, the train was kind of crowded. crowded enough for there to be no more seats but not crowded enough that no one can’t see her. no one stood to offer their seat. either they didn’t see her or they truly just don’t give a damn. heh. courtesy and common sense just isn’t common enough in singapore. if i was sitting down, i’d have stood up.
however, the worse was yet to come. i saw an indian man who was just standing to the side of me. from where he’s standing, he can clearly see the pregnant woman. there’s no way around it. how blind do you have to be to ‘not see’ a pregnant woman? anyway, from his vantage point, he saw someone stood up. he immediately went to the seat and sat down. can you believe it? he WENT to the fucking seat and SAT down! HE SAW THE PREGNANT WOMAN AND NOT ONLY DID HE NOT OFFER THE SEAT, HE TOOK IT!
i couldn’t confront him though. he’s much bigger than me. heh. i’m not about to get beaten up in public just so i could brag about doing a good deed. anyway, about 4 stops later, someone actually saw the pregnant woman and offered her a seat. the pregnant woman took the seat without so much a thank you or even a nod. it’s as if she deserved the seat and that the person who gave up the seat for her owed it to her.
when i saw that, i kind felt justified not confronting the big indian guy. heh.
was just chatting with Rin when i mentioned that i slept at 6am this morning due to me playing with some codes. he replied “wahh! can’t do that. i’m old liao. will konk out by 2am.”
he’s just only a year older than me! he’s seriously making me feel my age. just a few days ago, when i accompanied my brother home from his appointment at SGH, we bumped into an uncle who’s a taxi driver. anyway, when he asked us how old we were already, my uncle said “wah! Jay! 3 more years to 30 huh? so, got a girlfriend yet? when are you getting married?”
and when an aunt arrived last monday from the Philippines, that was what she asked me too. and the icing on the cake was when after she found out i can cook, she went “wah! Jay!!!! you know, if you came back to the Philippines, we can probably get you married already because you can cook!”
i’m not that desperate to be attached but you know, i think if this goes on much longer, i’d want to get attached just for the sake of stopping those questions. although if i do get attached, the next question will be “Jay, when will you be getting married?” and i bet once i’m married, the follow up question would be “when do you intend to have kids and how many?”
urgh.
this article says it all i guess.
although i don’t know where does it leave me. am i a nice guy? i don’t know. you tell me.
finally transplanted my msn’s custom emoticons from the old computer to the new one. man. i missed some of the emoticons. they’re just that good.
just finished watching this show. it’s pretty good. it’s like ‘The Blair Witch Project” but with zombies instead. sort of like resident evil meets america’s home videos. interesting. pretty fucked up ending though.
also watched ‘The Mist‘. it’s a 2007 movie adaptation of a novella by Stephen King. pretty twisted ending too. heh.
seriously am loving this new com. it has a pretty cool 19″ LCD monitor. watching movies on this computer is pretty good. my only peeve is that there seems to be something wrong with the front audio connector on my Asus Vento 3600 tower. no freaking clue why there’s no audio when i plug any thing into that jack. oh wells. will probably google for the answers before taking it down to Sim Lim to check.
and speaking of audio, i need to get myself a pair of good speakers. the computer didn’t come with a pair of speakers. however, the monitor has built in speakers although it’s seriously not enough. tinny sounds just don’t give the same experience when one is playing Hellgate: London.
really really miss Pandora. used to be able to find real good music from that site. now that access is limited to only listeners inside america, i can’t access it anymore. fuck.
i miss listening to obscure bands and stuffs like that.
just got back from the airport. went with mum and my bro to pick up my auntie and my cousin. heh. my cousin was brought up in an american environment as my uncle served as an airman in the american air force. whenever my cousin speaks, i keep thinking “damn. he’s got a strong american accent.” just like a good friend of mine named Jachin. anyway, he’ll be here for about 2 weeks.
in the meantime, my brother is bunking in my room. oh wells. there goes my late night gaming session.
just got home from my interview. heh. i made the interview panel laugh. however, to find out if it’s a good or bad thing, i’ll have to wait a week or so for the news. naught to do then except to wait for news.
heh. happy belated mother’s day. i spent my morning playing hellgate and then from 4pm onwards, was at my dad’s stall. busy day. got home at 11pm. oh yeah. some updates regarding my upcoming 2nd interview. it will be held tomorrow at 9am. i really am praying hard that i get this job.
anyway, on to hellgate. summoners are really powerful. seriously. engineers are not bad too but i think the summoner is much more powerful. imagine walking around with an army of elementals. hah! but then again, i’m still new at the game. not too sure about the other classes.
just got my new computer and a free Hellgate: London game! wooohooo! i’ll post up pictures later.
edit: my Hellgate: London is the collector’s edition. wahahahaha!
hehe. guess what? MINDEF called again. got through the first interview. second interview’s yet to be scheduled though. probably sometime next week i guess. happy? of course i am. nervous? you bet. i seriously need a job. my macbook pro’s somewhere out there waiting for me.
this sunday is Mother’s Day. any one interested to come over to my dad’s stall in clementi? i’m kind of helping out again. saturday and sunday. if anyone’s interested, do let me know yah? could probably try to get you guys some discount or something…
i got back home at 3pm today. i left the house at around 8.30am so that i wouldn’t be late for my 11am interview. i arrived at the location at 10.45am. i finished the interview at 11.20am. and yet i reached home at 3pm.
on one hand, it’s not going to be an everyday occurrence if i actually got the job. i decided to try a new route today. one that took me to jurong east from pasir panjang. and then from jurong east, i took another bus that will take me to hougang central interchange. guess what happened?
that bus from jurong east went back to pasir panjang. from pasir panjang, it went on to lavender, geylang and to eunos. from eunos, it went on to paya lebar before reaching hougang. in the end, when i reached hougang central interchange, i went to KFC and bought lunch for me and my bro before cabbing back home.
if i’d actually listen to her and took a bus to school or took a train home, i’d be home before 3pm. heh.
anyway, the interview seemed to have gone well. but then again, it’s just me. i don’t know how my interviewers felt about me. first time i went for an interview with an ‘interview panel’. my previous experiences of interviews were just one person asking me questions. first time i faced 3 with 1 of them taking notes.
i hope i didn’t screw it up.
great product placement and great advertisements.
Audi R8 Stunt
Audi Q7 stunt
having my interview tomorrow at 11am. the thing about that job is that if i get it, my transport to and fro is going to end up costing me a bomb. not to mention the time taken. although to be honest, if SIAEC were to respond and if i were to get that job, it’ll probably be the same thing distance-wise.
however, what i really want to do though is to go back to school. i want to study some more. anything. be it computer engineering, electrical engineering or even how to be a teacher. i seriously don’t mind. i just want to be able to study. i’m just too much of a slacker to want to be given responsibilities. i’m not saying i’m an irresponsible guy but honestly, i just don’t want to have to handle responsibilities.
being an elder brother is enough responsibilities. having been in the emergency medical service, i have enough of responsibilities. the most a student can have is his responsibility to study and all. and i’m contented with that. heh. hate having to be responsible for things. if only i have an elder brother. that would make things better.
if there was ever anyone in the world who could play Tony Stark, Robert Downey Jr. is that man.
just came back from watching Iron Man and whoa… am i blown away. the only other movie that made me felt that way was Transformers. the right pace of action, the right amount of humour… seriously it’s all good.
there was this scene where Stark tried to refine his repulsor jets… he decided to try a power output of 10% and it completely shot him through the air to hit a low ceiling. then there was this other scene where he was tinkering with his flight stabilisers and when his secretary came and asked “I thought you were finished making weapons?” he replied with “This is a flight stabilizer and it’s perfectly harmless.” after which, the gadget activated and he got blown backwards.
meh. i want to watch it again! seriously. anyone wanna watch it with me?
mum told me to wait a while before applying for a new broadband contract. i told her i couldn’t wait cause i really needed the internet connection and that i’d rather not wait. well. i’m a fool. the contract that i took gave me a new computer. the new promotion that is now up is giving away a 13″ macbook.
to be honest, i’d rather have the macbook anytime. i feel so fucking dumb now.
against all odds… i actually am shortlisted for an interview by MINDEF. a couple of days ago, i underwent a selection test. i kept having this nagging feeling that i’ve failed the test but hey… i’m going for an interview next monday!
still… the pessimist in me tells me that the reason i was shortlisted was because there was no one else and they desperately needed people. heh.
it wasn’t an interview today. it was a test. heh. i knew it was a test since the lady called to tell me it was a test. but boy… i didn’t know what kind of test it would be. and i think i flunked it.
part 1 was a personality test. that one is no problem.
part 2 is a test on current affairs. i think i flunked that cause i didn’t know who are the 2 current leaders of south east asia.
part 3 was an essay. that was not a problem.
part 4 was some iq diagram test. you’re supposed to draw a diagram but without lifting your pen or even retracing a line. only managed to do 5. 10 diagrams in 15mins. heh.
part 5 was a new broadcast test. let’s see… 5 short news segments of different issues. i’m supposed to listen to the segments and then come up with my own headline and also the gist of the segment.
part 6 was a diction test. a passage was dictated in a foreign language and i’m supposed to be able to write down the passage word for word. doesn’t matter if i don’t understand the passage as long as i can write down whatever i hear as accurately as possible.
in the event that i manage to pass the test, mindef will inform me in 2 weeks time for my interview. and there’s not 1 interview. it’s 2 interviews. gosh.
i don’t know how i did…
was talking with a few friends online. almost all told me the same thing. choose SIAEC if they offer me a job. one of the reasons i was told is that SIA is a very big company and that having it on my resume would be good should i decide to leave for greener pastures.
oh wells. all i can say at the moment is if it comes, it comes. don’t even have any idea if i could get the SIA job. heh.
just in case tomorrow’s interview doesn’t pan out… i’ve also applied to a few other companies. one of them is SIAEC. it entails a 3 years training program after which the applicant will be then appointed as Senior Licensed Aircraft Maintenance Engineer.
seriously though… between tomorrow’s interview and this SIAEC… i don’t know what to choose if both were to offer me a job.
finally got around to networking/sharing my printer over my home network. no need to head to a particular computer just to print documents. finally.
with the addition of the multifunction printer, my room has just become a tad more office-like. just need an addition of another phone and things would be looking so dandy. already have one phone in the room and that’s like my very own private line that’s not shared with the rest of the household. just need another phone to connect to the main line and all’s cool.
saw an external hdd yesterday at carrefour. price? S$179. too bad i didn’t have the moolah to get it. still jobless and i don’t intend to spend all my savings just yet. also saw this cool mini fridge. wanted to get that too but i’m sure once i’ve got that, i’ll have no reason to step out of my room at all…
went down to suntec to meet a couple of friends. i haven’t been to suntec in a while and everything just seems so new to me. the last time i’ve been to suntec should be the launch of TBC in singapore. that’s like so bloody long ago… it’s been at least a year if i’m not mistaken.
anyway, had dinner. dinner was a hotdog with lemonade and a small tub of mashed potato. first time having that for dinner and having to eat it standing up. it’s like… totally not me. anyways, after that, we walked around before having ice cream at Häagen-Dazs. seriously am craving for big apple.
heh. today’s Nick’s wedding and i didn’t go although i was invited. let’s just say i’m not really in the mood for gatherings. after the ice cream, walked to the roof top at esplanade. heh. another place i haven’t been to in a freaking long time. i can’t remember when was the last time i have been there.
memories. fuck them all. anyway, changes… loads of changes. hah! i feel like going there next week or something. i don’t know… anyway. my new motto: shit happens. unless you’re constipated.
ps: oh and mum bought me a new printer. old printer died like a month back and i couldn’t print anything. couldn’t print my resumes, etc. so anyway, mum got me one and it’s like a combi thingy… it’s a scanner, a copier and a printer. wooo!
one of the things i dislike are blogs which have embedded music in them. i don’t really mind the music. it’s more of the fact that they tend to play as soon as they finish loading and it’s so bloody irritating. i prefer to have a play button where i can play the song if i want to instead of having to pause the song when it starts.
i think the worse kind of embedded music is those which has no visible controls. when i encounter blogs like that, i will close the tab right off. no offense but the music that’s played is most probably something i dislike. recently, i’ve been seeing alot of blogs with that embedded imeem thingy. the thing about it is that sometimes, it loads super slowly and you kind of forget it’s there. and when it finally finishes loading and plays the song…
heh. so, if you want to embed music in your blogs, please do so responsibly.
interview on the 25th at science park 3.
just signed up for a new singnet plan. now to wait for the new computer.
haven’t been able to blog about my ICT due to my ‘net being down. anyway, have been pretty sick as well. currently at hougang polyclinic. thank heavens for Wireless@SG. blogging now using my iPod touch.
can’t wait for September as the iPhone is making it’s debut here in Singapore then. received a phone call from Mindef yesterday about the position of Information Analyst that i applied for. tentative interview and test would be sometime next week.
can’t wait to finally get a job. need my MacBook Pro…
back from my ICT. oh man! it was one of the best ICT i’ve ever had. one of the main reasons is because this time, i’m actually in my original unit. the past 2 times, i deferred attending my own unit’s ICT due to scool and had to attend my make-up ICT with other units.
this time i have made new friends and since they’re all from the same unit, i would be seeing them again next ICT. thanks staff sergeant Aftikar (Effy), staff sergeant Wui (Chiang), lieutenant Agil (Algae) and all the rest like Farhan, Fadzli, Amin… Bhakhit, Khidir, Jasri and all those whose name i can’t spell or don’t know.
you guys made this ICT a rocking one for me. i was originally dreading this ICT cause even though this is my 3rd ICT, i wouldn’t know anyone at all as i’ve never attended this unit. thanks guys!
i’ll write more later when i’ve woken up after a nice long sleep in an aircon room.
i’ll be away for my annual ICT from april 7th to april 14th.
i will be contactable via my mobile. although frankly, i don’t think that anyone will be contacting me. anyway, since my modem is dying and my ‘net is only up sporadically, i won’t be getting on msn too after i get back unless my modem is fixed.
like what Steph said… even if people do miss me online, i’ll probably annoy the hell out of them with my constant online-offline situation.
good time as any to be on hiatus huh? so goodbye cruel world. may things be better the next time we meet.
went to Sentosa today with people who attended the FOC. managed to talk to a few but i guess on the whole, i spent my time there reading a book and listening to music. now i guess people would be under the impression that i was being emo, anti-social or just plain being a loner.
fact of the matter is i don’t really know anyone besides the few people from the camp committee and even then, i don’t know them well enough to play games or whatever. i only went along because i haven’t been to Sentosa in a long time and since i’d be doing exactly the same thing at home, why not do it with a change of scenery?
heck. i even saw a few freshies in bikinis. that’s good isn’t in? i got to talk to some pretty babes but well yeah. i’m really not comfortable with people and if my sitting at a corner, reading a book will be misconstrued by others as me being emo, so be it. i had fun.
and yes. for goodness’ sake. my idea of fun is weird. sitting down, reading a book and listening to music at the beach may not be everyone’s idea of a good time but it is to me. lay off. i had fun and that’s good enough for me. although i do wish i could have spent more time talking to a few more other people. but oh wells.
and another reason i didn’t mix around and join in? let’s just say that i was known in the FOC as the medic. and i guess for this gathering, that’s what i am. that’s what i was there for. although i did leave early and i don’t know if anyone got injured… i do take my responsibilities seriously and i do love what i do. it’s pity i’m not doing it as a career though. i have no freaking idea why. maybe, i’ll take the chance and actually sign on. i know i have been saying that for almost 3 years now… probably should really just get it done with.
my modem is dying. to get a new modem, i’d have to fork out around $580 for the wireless modem-cum-router from 2Wire. another alternative is to recontract with Singnet. the problem with that is that my earliest recontract date with Singnet is in august 2008. if i try to do a recontract anytime before that, i’ll have to pay a penalty of $600.
since i’m not working at the moment, both options will leave my wallet in a whole world of pain. anyway, will just have to pray that that i get the job i wanted. this is exactly the kind of situation where i kind of regret leaving my previous job. the money would have more than get me a new modem. i could get myself a macbook pro as well.
fuck this. shit happens.
what i’d really like to do now is to go down to serangoon gardens and have my favorite ice cream. a part of me feels it’s pathetic to go to an ice cream parlour to have ice cream alone though. it’s like, if you’re going to have ice cream alone… there’s always cornetto.
meh.
mum’s expecting guests tonight though. and i’ve already agreed to make dinner for them. spaghetti and grilled chicken. heh. cooking is a form of therapy for me too. retail therapy would be nice but i don’t have anyone to ask out. and i don’t have anything i want to buy anyway. maybe except for a macbook pro…
fuck. seriously.
you know. i hate not knowing about things. makes me feel like i’m an outsider. seriously. i’m not going to elaborate. i’m not close with one set of friends. so even if i’m like left out and not know anything… i’m not bothered. but… seriously. with another set… dude. i thought we were close. seriously. heh.
anyway. congrats.
i seriously have no fucking clue whether i’m considered as part of the group. cause when things happen or whatever, i don’t know. i mean, fine. i don’t expect you to tell me everything. but when the few others also know it? and you just happened to tell me due to some random conversation? seriously? i’m pissed. but you know what? i’m sorry. maybe i’m just not much of a friend in the first place.
yes. so what if i fucking sound emo now?
things like movies, etc. yeah i know. i may not be free or anything. but i don’t even know you guys have outings now. i’m like so fucking in the dark. and when i invited you guys to go makan… excuses just comes piling in. seriously. since i don’t think i’m part of the group… i wish you guys the best.
once again bro, congrats.
forget it. not worth my time to feel down. we don’t really have much in common except for games i guess. come to think of it, i was never really close with you guys at all. i’m just like the extra dude. the one making up the numbers. and come to think of it? it’s the same where ever i go. shit happens.
was reading a forum thread titled “how do you tell if someone likes you?” and i came across this one answer which totally made my day. the answer? “they usually carry around a banner indicating they like you.”
heh. the first thing to make me laugh out loud today.
things i say or do… they do go through the head first. but unlike other people whose hearts take a backseat… my heart likes to snatch the steering wheel away from the head at crucial moments. and other times… it’s not my head or my heart that’s doing the driving. it’s my… hmmm. oh wells. guys should know yah? the little head vs the bigger one.
it’s coming 3am in the morning and i’m still awake. i can’t sleep. even though i’m now drinking a bottle of smirnoff’s, i still feel wide awake. drinking alone in the wee hours of the morning is very relaxing. although i’ve got to admit, it feels fucking emo. i mean, seriously. what else does it say about a person who drinks alone?
although strangely, i don’t feel emo. i don’t have anything to be emo about. relationships? actually, even the lack of relationships doesn’t bother me anymore. it’s like, so what? so what if every fucker i know is attached? i don’t give a shit anymore. i think. haha! i don’t know. maybe the fact that i’m even blogging this…
anyways, yeah. i’m not attached. okay. i admit sometimes i do get a bit envious. why not? i’m only human. i do get bitter too. it’s only natural. heh.
so… i’ve got a friend. he’s like… so man. you know the type. muscle bound, etc. big, fit… strong even… but i just realised one thing. hehe. and that no matter how strong or how man a guy is… he will be defeated by something called girl power.
i mean, dude. this friend of mine? he’s like got two bunnies. i almost wanna say he’s a sensitive fella and all that… but looking at him? it just kinda clashes. seriously. you’d never believe he’s one who’ll keep bunnies. anyway…. i’d better not write anymore. i still wanna stay alive till next week.
all good things must come to an end. come 7th April, i will be in camp for reservist. i think this is what i don’t like about the FOC and most camps in general. at least for other camps, you only get to go if you’re a part of the uniformed group, school or activity. so once you have graduated from those, you won’t get to attend those camps again.
it’s actually the same with FOC. i shouldn’t actually have attended. this makes the parting more sorrowful. but then again, who am i kidding? what parting? there is no parting until a connection has been made. as far as i am concerned, we’re all just ships passing by in the night.
i came, i did what i was invited to do and now that the event has ended, it’s time for me to return from whence i came. in two more weeks time, i’ll probably forget everyone from camp except for a few memorable people. you know who you guys are. the GLs, people like Jem… i’ll just take this time now to say thanks to all who made the camp possible. the freshies, the crew, the GLs and the camp comm.
camp withdrawal symptom sucks. it honestly does. but when it’s over, it’s over. hope to see you guys some time outside school and hope you guys remember the medic.
go ahead. google “npsu foc” and tell me what you see. hee~
just woke up from my nap. one of the things i’m missing right now from the FOC is the powerful aircon. my aircon’s pretty cold but man… the one in the welfare room is so much better.
now that i’m back though, i’d better treasure my aircon for the whole of the coming week as on April 7th to April 14th, i’ll be away from home again. a week of in-camp training over at Tampines Fire Station. can’t wait to get the ICT over and done with. after that, i’ll be looking for a job once again.
so guess what i’m going to be doing this week? i’ll be sleeping!!! going to make up for the hours i’ve lost during the FOC camp. and after that, i’m going to try playing around and coming up with new recipes. speaking of food… i had krispy kreme donuts!!! one of the crew brought a box and shared with us. gosh! the taste was so heavenly even when it’s cold! it’s the donut from heaven i say.
a pity there’s no outlets in singapore.
heh. was looking back at my posts on FOC ‘06/’07. i seriously cannot believe the difference. in FOC ‘06/’07, i didn’t really interact much with people. i’m kind of like just tagging along with Jem. where he says to go, i go since i don’t know anyone and he was like the only person i know.
this year’s FOC? whoa. since i already know a few people from the previous FOC, things were seriously way better this time around. let’s just put it this way. i’m much more confident in working with other people. in a way, working has made me have a different perspective on interacting with people.
i like the new me.
just got home from the FOC camp. i was the medic again but this time, with a fancier title. since Jem’s the SU president and the FOC’s camp coordinator, i was given the title of welfare head. which actually doesn’t mean much since i didn’t even get my custom access pass and instead was given a temporary pass. and the reason i didn’t have the custom access pass was because i wasn’t registered on time and thus, my picture and particulars were unavailable at the time of the pass’ printing.
also, while i’m technically the welfare head, unlike FOC ‘06/’07, there were no other additional medics or first aiders. i was essentially a one-man show although of course D, KX and Jem were around to help if i have my hands full.
no serious cases like broken bones or deep cuts although there were loads of scratches, abrasions and ankle sprains which is generally par for the course in such an event like an FOC camp. wasn’t able to sleep much though. at the start of the camp, we had about 720 freshmen who have signed up and booked in for the camp. that’s alot of people to take care of!
anyway, one of the best things were the new friends i’ve made. i seriously wish i was back in school again. i want to be a part of the SU! and boy. does this sound familiar. i remember writing an almost exact same post a couple of years back for FOC ‘06/’07.
anyway, the highlight of the camp was when it ended. the people i’ve helped and treated… some actually came to look for me to say thanks. i mean… dude. whoa. they were like… pretty girls! but that’s besides the point. the point is, knowing that people actually appreciate the things i do to come and look for me to say thanks is worth all the crap i’ve been through. not much crap there to begin with but it seriously made things all the more worthwhile. if there’s ever a reason why i’d agree again to FOC ‘09/’10 if i’m invited, it’s the knowledge that the things i do will be appreciated at least by 1 person.
went to help out at my dad’s stall earlier. arrived at around 5pm. just got home 20mins ago. not an easy job. seriously. hot, greasy… sweaty. not my kind of place. but since my dad’s stall has just advertised their new recipes and all that, had to help out as my dad’s expecting alot of customers.
anyway, tired now. i’m helping out tomorrow still.
made risotto and grilled salmon for dinner tonight. the past few nights have all been heavy soups made with loads of pork. something light today. glad to say i remembered to take pictures this time. i’m planning to write a cookbook. maybe get it published some time in the future. who knows?
i want to open my own cafe but as of now, not enough capital and i don’t have enough experience in cooking for strangers. anyways, will put up the photos later. going to take a shower. cooking is serious business indeed.
went back to NP this afternoon to get my brother his laptop and to meet my old friends. guess what laptop i got for my brother? i bought him a macbook. drats. i’ve been wanting to get myself a mac for a long long long time and when i finally started working and got the money to get myself a mac, i spent it on my brother.
i’d better get good points from this.
in any case, i’m not feeling too well. physically and urm… emotionally? for one thing, i wanted a mac. sheesh. speak about sibling jealousy. hahaha! kidding. i mean i bought it for him. no hard feelings. i can always buy another one for myself. and physically? think i’ve caught a cold. chills and all that…
so to sum up the week, i’ve resigned from a high paying1 job, spent a ton of money on my brother’s sem fees and also bought a macbook. oh and not to mention, my bottle of absinthe.
oh and speaking of absinthe… man. i dare not open it yet. waited too long for it to be opened and drunk in one night. need a good reason to open it. someone find me a good reason fast!
- from a fresh grad’s point of view, bringing home S$2.5k is rather nice isn’t it?[↩]
after final clearance, i went to tampines to meet up with jeremy. finally got my bottle of absinthe! will take pictures later. woo! 85% alcohol.
today marks the end of a chapter.
after tomorrow’s final clearance, i’ll no longer be a TECH employee. mixed emotions. on one hand, i’m glad to have left. i feel stifled there. unmotivated. but on the other hand… it’s my first permanent job. i’ve had part time jobs and temporary positions but it’s the first time ever that i’m working for life. it’s ironic that i resigned after four and a half months though.
it’s like having your first love or your first kiss. it’s an experience that you won’t forget and for better or worse, it will shape my views and perceptions on how working life is. and it taught me one important thing. make sure you thoroughly research the job scope carefully. i didn’t and i paid for it by losing interest.
to VT, dude. you’re one hell of an SM. i’ve never had an SM before but still… i’ll be putting others to the benchmark you’ve set for me until i find a better one. for one thing, i’ve never heard of anyone in an upper management position actually willing to get down and dirty with the guys in the fab. oh sure. maybe there’s some would go into the fab to look-see. but when you mentioned that day that you want to try out fixing up the STB… whoa. respect dude.
to the rest of my colleagues from “C” and “D” shift… thanks for making my two months in shift worthwhile. sure. sometimes i think you guys are full of bullshit. but hey, it’s all fun huh?
to my makan kakis… guys. remember to call me out for lunch or dinner when you’re off.
to the rest of my wave… hey. you guys made my first two months in TECH enjoyable. too bad after wave training, we kind of lost touch. anyway, take care and have fun!
and thus, the chapter ends.
updating on my previous post, i’ve handed in another resignation letter. this time stating that my last day is a week from today. heh. that means next week, i will only work on wednesday and thursday would be my clearance date.
can’t wait for next week.
even though i wrote that i was in two minds about resigning, i decided to just go ahead with it. it’s pointless to stay when i’m clearly not motivated and where i feel i cannot improve myself.
handed my resignation letter this afternoon. had one of the longest ever conversation i had with my section manager and an even longer one with my engineering manager. seriously, after those two conversations, i was pretty much wavering in my decision. my engineering manager even asked if it was a pay issue. he sort of hinted that if it was a pay issue, it can be arranged.
however, my main concern and push factor was that i’m just clearly not motivated enough by my job scope. i’m pretty much a receptionist with a fancy title. all i’m doing is either responding to online tickets or to pick up and answer phone queries. i know it’s a big part of operations support and since operations is the thing that generates the money, what i’m doing is essential.
however, it seems no one apart from us systems personnel knows that. every time we receive a phone call requesting support, over half of the callers expects their problems to be attended to immediately. half of the support tickets we receive are tickets helpdesk is unable to solve and we have to escalate those to the duty engineer. of the other half, a third of the tickets give little or no information that we are unable to even escalate their problems to engineers. another third of the tickets have stuffs like “oh. after we retry, it worked.” only the remaining third of the tickets are those we can solve and those are hard to come by.
anyway, after the conversations with my managers, i think i’m going to reconsider staying for a little while more. at least for a month or so. heh.
after making the decision to hand in my resignation letter tomorrow, my day have gone so bloody smoothly today. it’s weird though. because suddenly, i felt like i may have been a little bit too hasty in deciding to resign. well, i’ll see how tomorrow goes. even if i decide not to hand in the resignation letter tomorrow, the option is always there.
and besides, for my first ever job, the pay is truly nice. i’ve no beef with the salary. for a diploma holder who’s just freshly out of school, my pay is very high. the thing about my job is that it’s not challenging me or motivating me enough. it seems like a dead end job. it’s neither rewarding or fulfilling. but like i mentioned, the pay is good.
shit. now i’m in two minds about it. will have to sleep on it. in any case, even if i do not throw the letter tomorrow, i will be throwing the letter before my 6 months probation is up. within these 6 months, i can resign with only a week’s notice. after the probation period, it’s a 3 months notice period. i really pray things improve before the 6 months is up.
i made up my mind yesterday. i’m handing in my resignation letter tomorrow.
some would call it stupid; i’m making the decision without having any backup plans. however, well… i guess it’s for my own good. been stressing myself needlessly on the job. i thought that after being an ambulance medic and seeing up close life and death would have made me immune to stress or at least, be able to shrug things off.
heh. actually, these few weeks have been grueling. i’ve never felt so unsure of myself. my new trainer made me feel so inadequate. her impatience and attitude was actually the straw yesterday. she was just dumping everything on to me and she expected me to be proficient with the systems within just one walkthrough.
i mean, heck. she went through so many things in so short space a time. i’m not superman. sure, everyone makes mistakes. but for every mistake i make, she’d go “Jay! i just taught you that 10mins ago!”
and furthermore, for every other stuffs that she didn’t teach me, she’d say “oh this? no problem. there’s an SOP for that. just read this document. and when the error actually happens and i’m reading the SOP to troubleshoot, she’d go “wah Jay. damn slow… you should have read the SOP beforehand…”
we have over a dozen SOPs for errors. some common errors have more than 3 SOPs. and there are some errors which seemed common enough on the surface until you actually troubleshoot deep enough. how am i to read a particular SOP before hand?
anyway, when i made the decision yesterday, i felt good. seriously. i felt all the worries and undue stress evaporating from me. so… handing in my letter tomorrow. i’m free.
tomorrow will be the start of my long week. wednesday till saturday. heh. anyway, i’ve just started watching this anime called “Nodame Cantabile”. nice anime.
Based on the hit comic book by Tomoko Ninomiya, this is a fun-filled quirky romantic story of two very opposite people.
Megumi Noda, or “Nodame” is a piano student at Momogaoka College of Music. An extremely talented pianist who wants to be a kindergarten teacher, she prefers playing by ear rather than reading the music score. She is messy and disorganized, takes baths several days apart and loves to eat, sometimes stealing her friend’s lunchbox when it is filled with delicacies.
Shinichi Chiaki, is Momogaoka’s top student. Born into a musical family, he is talented in piano and violin and has secret ambitions to become a conductor. An arrogant multi-lingual perfectionist who once lived abroad in the music capitals of the world as a young boy (namely Prague), he is trapped in Japan because in his childhood, he was in both boat and airplane accidents, and is now terrified of planes and boats.
They meet by accident. Nodame quickly falls in love, but it takes much longer for Chiaki to even begin to appreciate Nodame’s unusual qualities. Their relationship causes them both to develop and grow. Along the way, they meet some crazy people (like Masumi, Mine, and Stresemann) and make lasting friendships. Because of Nodame, Chiaki got the opportunity to lead a student orchestra and begins to have a broader appreciation of people’s musical abilities. Because of Chiaki, Nodame faces her fears and enters a piano competition. Opportunities open up as both begin taking risks, stretching themselves far more than they ever thought possible.
– from wikipedia
am home on sick leave today. woke up having diarrhea. went to the gents 6 times in an hour and a half. usually i’d self medicate but since i had gone to see the doc yesterday with regards to my recent shortness of breath and skin allergy, i thought it may be because of an allergy to the medications i was given.
turned out it isn’t the medicine. the doctor said it could be something else so he gave me mc for today. that’s nice. i only have to work 2 days this week then instead of the 3 days i’m supposed to work. although next week, i’ll still have to work 4 days. bleh.
in other news, it’s already the 21st! payday’s coming soon. i’m already broke. while i initially told myself i’ll save up money to get myself a mac pro by this june, i think i’m not going to be able to keep that resolution. it’s already nearing the end of February and i’m not even close to half of the amount needed for the mac pro.
will have to wait for news from NTU/MOE.
okay. rant time.
when i send text messages that you think may be crude/vulgar/offensive… please wait before getting annoyed/pissed/upset. chances are, i didn’t send that message with the intention of pissing you off or getting you annoyed. heck. i only sent those messages to you because i’m probably mass sending those stuffs to everyone on my list because a) it’s funny, b) it’s cute, c) i thought you may find it amusing and d) i probably just sent it as part of my group list instead of selecting individually.
i couldn’t care less if you even received that sms or not because if i meant it for you, i’ll probably follow up with another sms asking you if you took it well or not.
and even if you do get pissed with that sms, please have the decency to sms me back or something. not wait till a few days later to tell me you get annoyed if i send those kinds of texts. you’re not the only one i’m forwarding funny messages to.
end rant.
so it’s that day again. valentine’s. guess what was i doing? i was working! yay! another 12 hour shift. i spent my valentine’s at work. heh. nothing to complain about though. i don’t have anyone to ask out. the one person i was hoping to ask out already has a date. so…
anyway, just realised the futility in everything i do. what’s the point of liking someone when she doesn’t feel the same? what’s the point of even saying “i’ll be there” when the person will not even care? anyhow, my day wasn’t too shabby. thank God for small favors.
every dog will have its day. i just hope mine comes soon.
so… after i heard from Rin that he had submitted his application to MOE, it got me thinking. i wanted to change jobs and i wanted to get a degree. *ding!* why not apply to be a teacher? there was this saying i heard from School of Rock. “those who can’t do, teach.”
heh. anyway, just submitted my application. the main thing is the education is free. although after the course, i’ll be bonded for 3 years to MOE. well… i don’t mind. it’s better than nothing. i’ve also applied to a few other companies. hope i get a response soon.
my younger brother just got back his results. Melvin scored 11 points! heh. that’s good news. damn. that was even better than we expected. weee!
today was the first week of my RT schedule. and guess what? it wasn’t actually RT. it’s more of an IPPT retest thingy. and it was dumb. according to my SAF100, i was to report to CDA by 2.30pm for the registration and that it will be till 3.30pm. actually, the actual registration was from 2.30pm till 3.30pm but the retest and RT was from 3.30pm onwards.
i worked the night before and i got home at 11am. i showered and took a short nap from 11.15am till 1pm before rushing down on a cab to CDA. it took me $19 to get there. anyway, a senior from my platoon told me that it was all a load of bullshit and a waste of time as the actual IPPT was only after 3.30pm.
what he told me to do since i may not be able to pass my IPPT is to just register my name and just go back home. i will be registered but considered to have failed my IPPT and would need to come for all 6 retests anyway. as i still have to work tonight, decided to take a cab back. crap man. the fare for the journey home is $20. i have spent $39 just on cab fare today. imagine me having to do this for another 5 more week…
just got myself a psp slim. oh boy. it’s good. i mean, the games i’ve got. wow. Jeanne D’Arc is great. i give it 9/10. not giving it full marks because it’s not an RPG per se. it’s a tactical RPG but not a full fledged RPG that i love. this game is even better that Final Fantasy Tactics although in terms of game play, Final Fantasy Tactics is more varied in that it has many different job classes to choose from.
Monster Hunter Freedom is interesting. i’d give it about 7/10. nothing much to say about it except that it’s pretty different in feel to most RPGs i play. i haven’t exactly played it yet but i heard from Weiloong that it’s got rich in content. hmmm. that’s good!
- 1 part gin
- 1 part freshly squeezed lime juice
- 4 parts tonic water
- pinch of lemon zest
that’s what i’ve been making since new year’s eve. it’s damn good. refreshing and wow. i have it almost every night before i go to bed and every morning when i wake up. i love it!
after waking up with a bad hangover… i have come to the conclusion that it’s now time for me to write down my resolutions for this year.
- firstly, get back into shape. get back into what i was before i entered Jurong Institute. i’m giving myself between 3 – 6 months.
- secondly, get myself a mac pro by june 2008.
- thirdly, get my driving license. also by june 2008.
to tell the truth, i only have these 3 goals in mind. i don’t want to overwhelm myself with too much goals and resolutions that i end up not keeping any. these 3 are reasonable enough right?
it’s a new year. a new year full of opportunities. and also full of disappointments and heartbreaks. heh. yea yea. i shouldn’t start the year on such a sour note. but the pessimist that i am knows better. yes it’s a new year. it’s a new year for me to redo all the things i did wrong the last year.
or even if i managed to get them correct this time ’round, i’m sure there’ll be dozens more of stuffs i’ll get wrong. a new year full of opportunities for me to make a fool of myself.
anyways, for what it’s worth, happy new year everyone!
i’m going to get wasted tonight. my bottle of gin and my bottle of vodka’s going to be my very intimate companions tonight.
cheers!
i’ve finally graduated.
i’ve got a job.
i’ve gotten myself an iPod Touch.
i’m still single.
well. that sums up 2007.
i’ll probably add on more once i’ve fully done my reflections for this year.
i wrote about how my iPod Touch died on me a few days ago. anyway, i went down to the apple shop at cineleisure on monday and had them took it in.
today, i went down to collect it. guess what? Apple replaced my iPod Touch with a brand new one. i asked why and the guy said “Oh. Apple will replace iPod that’s brought in under warranty.”
so i’ve got a brand new iPod Touch. Apple… i love you.
just got back from my first night of work. not exactly fantastic. could have been better but i’m not complaining. it could have been much worse. anyway, i survived my first night only to face a new problem. or in the words of my supervisors, a new challenge. remember i wrote about getting a deferment from my ICT?
well… i got my deferment and my make up ICT is in april. that’s cool. what’s not cool is because i missed this month’s ICT, i have to undergo RT. every freaking saturday. for 6 saturdays. that’s not so bad in itself. what’s bad is that i freaking end working every saturday at 9.30am and the bloody RT is at from 2.30pm onwards. even that is not really so bad. what’s worse is that every 2 weeks, i have to work on saturday nights too!
tell me. how the fuck do i actually rest on that saturday? let’s say i were to go home from work. i would reach home latest 11am. at 1pm, i would need to rush down to CDA for my RT. let’s say my RT ends at 3.30pm, i’ll reach home by 5pm. i need to leave the house at 7.30pm to reach my work place by 8.45pm. how the fuck can i work throughout the night with only a few hours rest? not to mention i have to undergo RT?
oh. and did i mention i am on standby the whole of february?
spent the whole of Christmas in bed reading a few books. not a bad way to spend Christmas. but it’s a terribly lonely way to spend such a day. my bro went out since early morning and only got back around 4pm. so it was a very lonely Christmas. haha. oh wells.
i didn’t have anyone to spend it with anyway, so… -shrugs-
working the night shift later tonight. tomorrow, i’d need to rush down to 2nd Div HQ to get my MUT schedule. seriously on hindsight, i should have just gone for my ICT. not only did i not really enjoyed Christmas anyway, i’ve just dragged the inevitable. at least if i’d have gone for the ICT, i wouldn’t have to rush down for any MUT or anything. stupid me.
heh. i feel… lonely.
this time of the year… usually there’ll be visitors at home or something. even if there’s no one, there’s still my parents and my 3 younger brothers. this year… meh.
anyway, i’m going to bed.
Lord Jesus, Happy Birthday. Nights!
my iPod Touch died on me this afternoon. was watching a video clip together with my brother while on the train when i noticed the colour turned yellowish. decided to turn it off and on but after it was switched off, it refused to turn on again. decided to do a hard reset when i got home but nothing’s happening.
all i got was some error code 1604 and even though i tried googling for solutions, nothing seems to be working. will be heading down to cineleisure tomorrow to the apple shop there to see if something could be done. drats.
seriously. i want you. i don’t know how else to say it. i don’t know how to put it into words. i don’t know how to make a move. i don’t want to make a move. i’ll probably get rejected. i’ll probably get so depressed and dejected after getting rejected that i’ll do and say stupid things again.
not like i’ve never done dumb things before. but i seriously want to make this work.
i am beginning to hate the christmas season. it’s not so much as christmas day itself. it’s the hype and all. christmas was supposed to be a celebration of Christ’s birth. and what happens? it gets so commercialised.
actually… my rant has nothing to do with christmas too. heh. it’s just this whole festive season and all that. people buying stuffs for loved ones and all. i don’t have a ’special someone’ to buy stuffs for. i could go and buy stuffs for my brothers and my parents… but it’s just not the same.
and i have no fucking idea how to explain it. it’s like there’s just this gaping emptiness there. although i probably only feel this way because i’m not doing what i said to do. i’m not looking at christmas with the right perspective. like i said at the beginning of this post, christmas is a celebration of Christ’s birth. i shouldn’t attach any other thing to it.
but it’s hard. the more i try not to thing about being lonely, about being single… all the more all these feelings come in. and it sucks. gosh. i just want to find someplace to hide out. my parents and my 2 younger brothers not here in singapore is making things worse.
today was a crazy day. first, there was a sectional lunch over at Causeway Point’s Pizza Hut. guess how much was the bill after the lunch? S$550. thank God we didn’t have to pay for it as our manager was the one who paid for it. then earlier this evening, there was a departmental dinner.
just got back from it. the games and all that… though they weren’t really spectacular, they were fun. the theme was “casino” and there were games. there was a “big/small” table, a roulette table, a black jack table and another table whose name i forgot. anyway, i won a $10 voucher from the gambling game.
the highlight of that dinner was the lucky draw. there was about 12 prizes and 2 special prizes sponsored by the VP and by the Director. the prize by the Director was a PSP bundle. the one by the VP was an iPod Touch. i won a Titus men’s watch though. Cool thing.
parents and brothers went to the philippines this morning. sent them off. heh. miss them. actually, i miss the noise at home. the house is just so… quiet now. Michael’s in his room playing WoW. me in my room writing this blog and listening to music.
thank goodness they’re only going to be gone for 2 weeks. after sending them off, went home and went back to bed. only had lunch at like 3pm. heh. only then did i realise that if i were to leave the food to Michael, we’ll both starve. dude thought that i’d be cooking or something…
anyway, did some grocery shopping. bought 2 packs of instant noodles, a few packs of hot dogs and some bread. hopefully it should last us 2 weeks. don’t really feel like cooking for just 2 people. especially since Michael doesn’t really eat at home, i’m effectively cooking for myself.
i’ve forgotten how to love. either that, or i didn’t know how to love in the first place.
my idea of love is to be able to give my loved ones anything they desire. and for me, usually it ends up with me buying them stuffs. i want to be able to give them everything. often though, it seems i do it the wrong way. i don’t know how to go after a girl. i often do it by taking them to the movies, for dinner, buy them stuffs… seems wrong somehow. and then i end up complaining when after all the time and effort i’ve spent, nothing comes of it.
a friend of mine lost her phone last night. frankly speaking, when we went to the phone shop at J8 last night after she lost her phone, i wanted to buy her one then and there. was just afraid to do so. i mean, she isn’t my girlfriend. i’m not anything to her. so why should i buy her a phone? i do admit though, if the rest of the guys weren’t there, i’d have offered to buy her one.
yes. i still do like her. what’s not to like? but i don’t think i’m going to do anything more. i don’t know what else to do and i don’t know how. and i am very very frightened of being rejected. i’m afraid of rejection. don’t we all?
so anyway, yes. i do want to get her a phone. but i don’t know how to bring up the subject. i do know though that i can’t use “buying a christmas gift” as an excuse…
do you think i’m materialistic then? that all i know is how to spend money to show how much i care. meh. i spend on myself alot too. it’s a form of therapy. not that i shop often. but i do like spending money on myself. it makes me feel… good. albeit only for a short time. i’m planning to get a mac pro and also an iPhone. i want to get myself a new pair of loafers and also a new pair of oakley glasses with transition lenses. for all that though, i don’t think i’m materialistic. i don’t think of myself as shallow. it’s just that i feel so lonely and depressed at times that these are the stuffs that brings me comfort. knowing that i can afford such stuffs… small comfort to be sure… but comfort nevertheless.
just gave them a call again. whew! they said deferment was approved and that the approval letter was already mailed out. thank goodness. i can spend christmas as a civilian this year…
i would love to have a “it’s complicated” on my facebook too…
love billy bomber’s nachos. had nachos earlier while out with PeiQi at orchard. been a real long time since i’ve last been to orchard and gosh… the lights are wonderful! had so much fun just… sitting and talking nonsense. she’s pretty funny. anyway… the milkshake and the nachos are yum!
i have no idea what’s causing it but since yesterday morning at around 11am, both my forearms have been breaking out into hives. went to see my doc but even he didn’t know the cause. all he could give me was just 2 types of tablets. one to control the itch and another to control the inflammation.
as long as the rashes are confined to the forearms, i’m okay with it. wearing long sleeves should do the trick.
my christmas wish is to have you.
forgot to mention. last night while over at Cass’ place for dinner, myself and the guys were discussing about the upcoming chalet. realized that we (the whole gang it seems) are just plain lazy to barbecue stuffs. this is already the 2nd chalet (or 3rd?) that we aren’t barbecuing stuffs.
this time around, we plan to just microwave the otaks. last chalet (i think it was the last chalet…) there was no barbecuing too. instead, what we had was just some spaghetti, potato salad and some egg omelettes. this chalet though… other than the microwaving of otaks, we’re most likely to just head down to Changi Village for our meals.
what i’m going to bring though is a bottle of absinthe. or i’ll try anyway… i have no freaking clues on where to get a bottle of absinthe in singapore. anyone have a clue?
went out for dinner earlier. met up with the gang. hah! the crab was nice. some kind of sweet and spicy gravy over it. so… yummy. man… i missed those guys. seriously. it’s been… gosh. i think the last time i met them was at least 3 weeks back…
oh. forgot to mention. my lecturer from school called me up today. seemed that one of the EE department secretary’s husband wants to have a website done for his company. somehow, according to my lecturer, i was the first person that popped up on his mind. anyway, i’ve yet to speak to the guy… have to find out what stuffs does he want done.
if i feel i’m not up to the task, i’m going to refer him to jeremy.
having a department dinner on the 19th of december. wave outing on the 20th and on the 21st, we’re celebrating Thiri’s birthday.
the department dinner will be held at one of our manager’s condo. somewhere in amk, so it’s pretty convenient for me. the wave outing on the 20th will be an outing to vivocity. some tentative plans would be bowling or pool probably… or maybe even scrap vivocity completely and just go marina for the steamboat or bowling.
some tentative plans for the 21st includes us going to malaysia for some seafood. but this malaysia trip would be dependant on Thiri being able to get her visa approved. heh. and once her visa is approved, we’ll be going to genting one of the sundays in january. heh. making so many plans that i’m sure not alot of us will keep…
this christmas is going to be a rather… ’sad’ one for me. or rather, maybe the word to use would be ‘unjoyous’. parents and my 2 youngest brothers will be going back to the philippines for a holiday. that’s all good and well. however, it means me and michael are ‘home alone’.
actually, i’m rather glad michael’s not going too. otherwise, i’m really going to be home alone. for roughly 2 or 3 weeks, being home alone ain’t fun. i mean, sure… i’m out working and all that… but still, imagine coming home to an empty house? if i am not wrong, i’m off from work from the 22nd till the 25th of december. my shift starts on dec 26th. night shift too…
what this means for me and my brother is that we’re not going to be celebrating christmas this year. so… anyone has got plans?
A woman has a close male friend. This means that he is probably interested in her, which is why he hangs around so much. She sees him strictly as a friend. This always starts out with, you’re a great guy, but I don’t like you in that way. This is roughly the equivalent for the guy of going to a job interview and the company saying, You have a great resume, you have all the qualifications we are looking for, but we’re not going to hire you. We will, however, use your resume as the basis for comparison for all other applicants. But, we’re going to hire somebody who is far less qualified and is probably an alcoholic. And if he doesn’t work out, we’ll hire somebody else, but still not you. In fact, we will never hire you. But we will call you from time to time to complain about the person that we hired.
and guess what… i’m THAT friend. with almost every girl i am ever interested in. yes. i am THAT friend.
Imagine if you went to McDonalds a lot and ordered a Big Mac Combo meal. A Big Mac, Large Fries and a Coke. You really like this meal. One day, you pull up to the drivethrough and order the Big Mac Combo meal and the girl tells you, “I’m sorry – you can have the Big Mac and the Coke, but you can’t get fries with that anymore.” You think about this for a moment, and sure – the Big Mac is the centerpiece of the meal, but McDonalds has some really good fries and you like their fries with your meal. So you say, “I’ve been able to get fries with that before, why can’t I have fries with my Big Mac combo anymore?” The girls says, “Well, I just think it is better if you only have the Big Mac and the Coke from here on out.”
read the rest here.
been kind of short tempered recently. the punctuality thing was one of the most visible ones. being an ass to my little bro. really just scolding him and all that even though it’s not exactly warranted. basically, i’m going back to the way i was before i was with her.
damn tired with how things are going. i thought i’d be happy with having a job, with having my iPod Touch… but damn. it’s not doing anything inside of me. i mean, so what if i have material stuffs? it’s not the same. something’s missing. something is really missing. and nothing i do is filling up that emptiness within.
damn. it’s just bugging me to no end. like an itch i can’t reach. i’ll probably go crazy one of these days.
heh. my new job reminds me alot of my time as a medic during my National Service. i’m not complaining or anything though. it’s strangely comforting. there’s no welfare problems in TECH. in fact, safety is number one! safety is a condition to working in TECH. if anyone is found/caught violating safety protocols, he/she will either be “counseled” or “terminated”.
however, as far as i’m concerned, technologists are to engineers what nurses are to doctors. subordinates/assistants or whatever you want to call it. just like my time in SCDF, the paramedics are the ‘first class citizens’ while we medics are the ’second class citizens’. here at TECH, it’s the engineers who are the ‘first class citizens’. we technologists seems like the ’second class citizens’. my engineers are all very friendly people though. however, i can’t help but feel ’segregated’. it’s like, engineers are engineers. we technologists are not just lower in postitions and responsibility, but even in “seniority”, we have to defer to engineers.
maybe it’s a case of the grass being greener over the other side. however, i don’t think other companies have these kinds of situations. sure, your manager is your manager. but amongst colleagues, all are equal except maybe for seniority and pay. then again, i could be wrong.
all the same, i wish i could have at least obtained a degree before working here at TECH. i’d be an engineer.
oh man. lovely show. it was great. i mean, after watching Resident Evil: Extinction and The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, Stardust is pretty refreshing. i seriously wouldn’t mind watching it again. and to top it off, watched it with a lovely person. what could be better than this?
next show to catch? Beowulf!
started my internal department training today. can’t say it was a piece of cake. loads to learn. might need to start digging up my CCNA textbook to brush up on my networking. unix, etc are just the tip of the iceberg.
would be working with lots of in-house software too. this isn’t even the departmental OJT yet… not stressed out yet but i’m seriously overwhelmed by it all…
wells… life’s okay so far. work-wise that is. nothing further to update i guess. haven’t been going out and i guess i’m not actually interested in going out. just want to come home straight from work and sleep. can’t wait to start work proper. met alot of new people these past 2 weeks and made friends.
i’m ‘content’. or at least i think i am. i mean, there’s still something lacking. i think i know what it is. but at the moment, i still have no idea how to get about filling up that hole. anyways, tomorrow’s friday. may be going out for dinner with friends from my wave group. hope to be able to come back and meet up for wave 2.
from here.
yesterday was my second day at work. found out that the orientation actually lasts for 6 weeks. 2 weeks of phase 1 orientation followed by 2 weeks MAOJT where we will be attached to a shift where we will observe and see the production/manufacturing process. this ensures that we do not forget the ‘bread and butter’ of the company. after these 2 weeks of MAOJT, it’s back to 2 more weeks of phase 2 orientation.
and after these 6 weeks… 2 years of OJT before we’re fully qualified for our job’s responsibility.
wow. it’s really quality control at the core. i see myself having job satisfaction. i’m… really excited and happy. although, i do acknowledge that things may turn out differently and all that, for now, i’m contented and satisfied.
just got back from my first day at work. wow. i don’t know where to begin really. the pacing wasn’t really that hectic or what since it’s the first day. it’s weird too actually. seems like some kind of polytechnic orientation thing. 2 weeks of ‘orientation’ till Nov 15th followed by 2 weeks of OJT followed by more ‘orientation’ for another 2 or 3 weeks.
so basically, today we were taught software and security policies that are enforced in the company. basically, we have our own email but that is to be internal use only. we cannot use other external public or private emails for any company matters. we are not allowed to have internet privileges except for certain departments (hopefully mine is one of those)… not allowed to bring in personal laptops, notebooks and PDAs unless it’s a pda phone.
we are allowed to ballot for chalets. there’s 2 chalets we can ballot for. one is a villa in Bintan and another is a chalet in Pasir Ris. i’ll try my hand to book a chalet for the guild next year. the company’s in-house gym has certified trainers too.
heh. i’m tired. really tired. what i’ve written above doesn’t break any NDAs that i’ve signed. anymore i write might though, so i’ll just stop here.
went to catch Halloween earlier this afternoon. not too shabby. there were some BOO! parts that made me jump… the back story was nice. and overall… the blood was plentiful!
oh. there were some nude scenes too but seriously… it’s hard to be excited about the nude scenes when you’re watching the movie with a gal. moreover, each time you see the nude scenes, you know the next part is where the killer comes in. hah! i think i caught halloween H20 or something… but i didn’t really know the back story behind it.
now i know. not bad. this remake makes me wanna watch the original.
mum just got me a 16GB iPod Touch. well, sort of. there was this promotion going on at
16GB 1Pod Touch- PDA Phone
- New Com
wrong numbers are one of my pet peeves. actually it’s no so much the wrong numbers themselves but the callers. they’d call and ask for a So-and-so and when i said “i’m sorry but i think you’ve got the wrong number”, there wouldn’t be a word of “thanks” or “sorry”. they’d just hang up.
and what’s worse is when they call back a minute later. and when they hear my voice, instead of apologizing that they’ve got the wrong number, they’ll just hang up. seriously. it’s just so bloody rude. and they tend to call at the wrong time. like earlier this morning. got woken up by 2 wrong numbers.
went for my interview yesterday. haha. sheesh. i don’t know where to start.
the interview started at 10.30am and the whole thing ended at 4pm. in total, i had 3 interviews. first interview with the director, second interview was with a department manager and last interview was with my direct supervisor. and after the interview… i was offered the job!
hahaha!
oh man… i’m starting work on november 1st. i won’t be able to blog about work much though. had to sign several NDAs. oh wells…
met a really cute girl earlier while on the way home from a movie. she’s really cute and we had a nice long chat. almost 15mins worth. only bad thing is… she’s an insurance agent. and not just any agent. she’s an insurance agent from the same company that my brother will be working for.
heh. lucky bastard.
have another interview appointment. this time, the position is for a Systems Tech for PC/Windows Administration. sounds good. will write more after the interview.
the place is far. and quite isolated. well… not exactly. however, it’s pretty deep in a sort of side street away from the main road. there’s a bus service to the building from the MRT station. however, the wait time is pretty long during off-peak hours. saw from the bus information that the wait time for AM off peak is from 8 – 25mins.
considering that i don’t have any other transports available to me… it’s going to take me more than 1 hour to travel… at least 3 hours back forth. for the umpteenth time, i wished i had gotten my driver’s license and a car.
so… the interview. well it was pretty okay. it went pretty well i think. unlike the other interview i went, this interview was interesting. firstly, there wasn’t much awkward silences and pauses. it’s more of a conversation instead of a question and answer thing. and boy, was the interviewer straight to the point.
first of all, he explained to me exactly what the job scope encompassed. it’s really a cross between PDP and DCS. programming the PLCs and using the HMIs and all that. the only concern i have is that i don’t exactly have a background in PE. my specialization during my final year was in DN. thank God i did have my DCS and PDP modules.
then we continued by talking about career and upgrade prospects. he told me that on-the-job training will be provided and that where possible, overseas training trips are available too. however, when i explained that i intend to further my studies fulltime after a few years of work, he kind of shook his head. he told me it’s not really possible and that he would prefer applicants to stay on in the company because paper qualifications aren’t as important as performance and hard work.
oh wells. anyway, he told me one thing. to save both our times, he said to think carefully about this job. if i really am interested in taking this job, he will consider me. if however, i’m not interested in the job after hearing what’s required and all, he said it’s okay too. he told me that it’s better to reject this job than to stay on and after a few months, decide it’s not worth my time. ultimately, he wants the people in the company to be happy working there than to feel forced to work.
i agree. and i kind of like the way he’s straightforward. well, if i don’t get the job from Okuma, i’ll call back for this job.
this morning on the way to my interview, i finally recalled why i hated taking the train. firstly, it’s freaking crowded during the morning rush hour. more than that, unlike taking a bus, you have to ’share’ your personal space with more than one person. now i recall why i was often late for school. i’d be taking my own sweet time waiting for a double decker aircon’ed bus which has as little people as possible.
man… anyway, i hate the pole dancers too. and damn it. the cabin i was in had so many elderly people standing up. the bloody yuppies sitting down all pretended to sleep or something. and i had this woman standing in front of me wearing a sleeveless shirt hanging on to the over head handle. women who have hairy armpits shouldn’t ever wear sleeveless.
urgh. traumatised so early in the morning. it was a wonder i could even think coherently during my interview.
so… what’s the starting salary like for a fresh polytechnic graduate? just graduated not long ago and searching for a job. one of my main worries though is the salary and also growth prospects. actually, i think the reason i’m worrying about the salary is because of peer pressure.
actually it’s not peer pressure in that sense of the word. i’m kind of ‘comparing’ myselfs with my peers. it’s not exactly a healthy mindset but well…
being in singapore, it’s hard not to be materialistic. oh i know there’s lots of people who couldn’t care less. but what are the chances that the girl i might be interested in in the future is the sort who couldn’t be bothered whether or not i make enough money to support her?
but more than that, i want my iPhone, my iPods… and also a yearly subscription to World of Warcraft. hehe.
didn’t attend friday’s interview.
on the Oct 2nd, at 11.30am, i received a call from this hr company regarding an interview. i was told that i was shortlisted for a particular job and that i was to attend an interview on friday, the 5th of Oct. i was also told that i would be receiving an email giving me the details and the address of the company.
waited for like so long only to realise that no email was coming.
until 4.30pm on friday. the hr consultant called me to ask if i was even going to attend the interview. i told her that i didn’t have the address and the details. she then told me she had already emailed me the min she called me on the 2nd of Oct.
anyway, long story short, the hr personnel of the company i applied to was willing to reschedule my interview to monday at 10am. and what happened to the missing email? well this was what happened. the hr consultant emailed me the details again and i managed to find the second email. guess where it was? in my spam folder. really weird though.
i always clear my spam folder every 2 days. and even though i checked through, i never saw the first email. hmmm. oh wells. i wonder what other companies may have sent me emails only for their mails to be sent to the spam box.
it’s been 5 days since my last interview with Okuma Corp. still no news from either Okuma or my agent. was just contacted by another agent saying i’m shortlisted for another position. that’s good to hear. interview would be this friday at 4pm i believe. keeping my fingers crossed for the Okuma job though.
i’ve been searching for a job ever since i’ve graduated. that would be around maybe 2 – 3 weeks of searching. my mum’s friends have tried to help me too by getting me to apply to their companies. no replies from there though. anyway, i finally decided to try using JobStreet to help me search and within a few days, i’ve emailed my resume to quite a few companies.
a friend or two said that cold calling isn’t good. well, i say this. if you were to just randomly throw bombs around, the chances of you in actually bombing something worthwhile is there. might as well just bomb away for all it’s worth.
so anyway, i’ve gotten a call from one of the job recruitment companies and was asked to turn up today for an interview. hehe. after the interview, i was told by the consultant that i’ve been shortlisted by the company i was applying to and that i’m to go for yet another interview tomorrow.
the company that i am applying to seems to be a japanese mnc and that it had just recently opened its singapore branch. therefore, they urgently needed engineers. the company basically deals in machine tools and one of my primary job scope is to maintain and do light repairs on the machinery. i’m also supposed to do reports and to travel overseas on business trips.
sounds good huh? i really hope i get it. honest. i’m really in need of a job. i can’t always be spending time at home on WoW. although actually… i kind of like bumming around. hehe. too much of a good thing makes me sick though.